Of the numerous product launches that have occurred throughout 2015, the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu showed it was up to snuff by the Automotive Press Association, the association responsible for the North American Car of the Year award.
A panel of 53 judges, made up of automotive media across the United States and Canada, announced the finalists after weeding through the 49 contenders for the award.
The 2016 Chevrolet Malibu is the only domestic vehicle found on the list.
“Chevy needs a car that can go toe-to-toe with models like the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Ford Fusion and Nissan Altima,” said Detroit Free Press auto critic Mark Phelan. “The 2016 Malibu is that car.”
Also in the running for the 2016 NACOTY are the all-new, tenth-generation Honda Civic and Mazda MX-5 Miata.
The award winners will be presented at the 2016 North American International Auto Show on January 11. In the meantime, Chevrolet also has one other vehicle up for an award, too. The 2016 Chevrolet Volt also found its way as a finalist for the Autoblog Tech Car of the Year, which will also be presented at 2016 NAIAS, as well.
Comments
I want to go test drive one of those muthas.
GM is the only domestic who can keep pace with the Asian brands–Ford is lackluster, FCA is a quality mess!
Malibu will win. The auto press has been waiting for Detroit to break through and challenge Honda and Mazda.
Cruze should be on the list. Adam should be sold stateside and be listed, too.
I would love to see them take on Honda but even as good as this car is the media really has a hard time seeing Honda for what they really are.
What is Honda then?
Honda had an edge for years but like Toyotas have lost that gap over the years but often in the media got the free pass.
Not saying they made bad cars but they have had issues with building more advanced better cars than any one else. Often the media would just name their car the best in a segment when it was not always true.
Not saying Chevy had been better but in class others have been better.
The bottom line is Honda has made some stinkers too in the past few years. If you note they have had a few redo’s of some models like GM did on the last Malibu because of poor receptions of product.
Toyota has just gotten dull and listless as they are far from really breaking new ground with cars like the Camry. Imagine if it was them that lost 300 pounds in this segment how the media would swoon.
Note too companies also have paid and bought some media outlets. Yes media is often for sale. Toyota has often influenced news papers in the past to give them rave reviews. Most not reall stand out but some were like the Toronto Star that was renamed by some as the Toyota Star for their obvious bias.
GM and Ford have bought favor with others like Motor Trend so it is not something they all don’t do to some degree.
Lets just put it this way. I would be shocked if they pick the Bu this year. It is a very good car and the Hybrid in my opinon breaks some reall good ground in a segment that sees little ground broken. Media can be ficked and bias. Money talks too.
Note to even in my line of work the more we spend on advertising the more often we get into other storied and photo placement in stories they publish.
Scott3, Toyota fell into the same trap as most largecompanies. this article from Harvard Business Review specifically mentions them.
https://hbr.org/2015/11/why-organizations-dont-learn
Toyota fell into this, which the article lists with more detail.
Challenge #1: Fear of failure.
Challenge #2: A fixed mindset.
Challenge #3: Overreliance on past performance.
Challenge #4: The attribution bias.
Honda makes some really good cars, i”d agree though that for awhile the quality went down hill, civic is promising still i like the euro one a bit better. and there are auto journalist esp ones on youtube who have criticize of what honda has done wrong plus the retired ceo didn’t like where honda was going.
No doubt. Honda makes some good cars.But their quality is no longer unrivaled in the auto industry.
Anyone that thinks that Honda and Toyota are vastly superior in quality are still going by the 1990s.
It’s 2015 and things have changed since then.