The best cars for comfort, technology, safety, practicality and more

Our Driver Power survey takes every single aspect of a car into account in order to produce the final ranking, and quite rightly so. For many people, a car needs to be able to fulfill a wide array of criteria, allowing it to switch seamlessly between the school run, a motorway cruise and a blast down a B-road.

In spite of this, we’re fully aware that some car buyers are after something more specific, and therefore want to make their purchase decision based on one particular factor.

Maybe you’re after a car that can take a family of five, their various pieces of luggage and the dog 100 miles in reasonable comfort for a two-week summer holiday? Or perhaps you couldn’t care less about practicalities such as rear-seat legroom, boot space and fuel economy, as long as your car looks good, drives even better and does 0-60mph quicker than whoever pulls up next to you at the traffic lights.

With this in mind, we’ve broken this year’s Driver Power new car survey winners down by their categories, scoring them on all the points that apply in this area. On these pages you can discover how owners rated their cars in eight main Driver Power categories. We reveal the highest ranked cars for engine and gearbox, infotainment and connectivity, interior and comfort, exterior styling, practicality and space, ride and handling, safety, and running costs. It should prove a useful guide to anyone thinking of buying a new car. 

Click the links below for details of the winner and top 10 in each survey segment…

• • Engine and gearbox
• • Infotainment, connectivity and electrics
• • Interior and comfort
• • Exterior styling
• • Practicality and boot space
• • Ride and handling
• • Safety features
• • MPG and running costs

Click here to tell us about your car in the Driver Power survey...