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New Car Awards 2024: the winners

The best new cars on sale in 2024 are right here. These are the winners of the 2024 New Car Awards…

If you asked us to name a more pivotal year for new cars in the 36-year history of Auto Express magazine, we’d struggle to come up with a better answer than this one.

We always knew 2024 would be significant, due to the Government's ZEV mandate stating that 22 per cent of all brands’ sales must feature fully electric powertrains. On its own, this would be enough to leave many established manufacturers scrabbling to offer discounts to boost electric car sales. But this is being compounded by the arrival on the scene of several new Chinese car makers. 

With so many big waves rolling across the car industry, it came as no surprise to us that 2024 has proven to be one of the most competitive years for our illustrious New Car Awards ever. No fewer than 18 of our 26 category winners are new models, demonstrating a wealth of fresh talent arriving across the whole market. Significantly, several previous petrol or diesel-powered winners have been barged out the way by compelling newcomers that instead draw their energy from a plug. Best of all, many of those new entrants are superbly priced. 

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It was an incredibly tough decision to choose our overall Car of the Year, with three of the strongest contenders all available for less than £20,000, and several other very pragmatic options proving to be much more affordable than the competition. Is your next new car somewhere within our New Car Awards pages? It certainly should be.

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It’s the same format as usual, we have a winner and two commended cars in each category. With each of the winning cars, we have also selected the exact version, engine option and trim level we recommend you should buy for the best balance of cost, equipment, practicality and performance.

You can find all the information on our New Car Awards 2024 winners and the reasons why we chose them on the pages below. Just follow the links to read more…

New Car Awards 2024: the winners

Special edition of Auto Express

Auto Express Issue 1,838

For the full New Car Awards experience, make sure you pick up a copy of our special 2024 New Car Awards collectors' edition of the Auto Express magazine, which is available in shops now.

Subscribe to Auto Express magazine

You can buy individual issues of Auto Express or subscribe for even bigger discounts on the print magazine cover price. You can also subscribe or download individual issues of our digital edition direct to your desktop, phone or tablet as well.

Stay right up to date with the latest from the world of cars in 2024 and beyond, subscribe to our email newsletter and follow us on social media...

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Steve Walker, head of digital content, Auto Express
Head of digital content

Steve looks after the Auto Express website; planning new content, growing online traffic and managing the web team. He’s been a motoring journalist, road tester and editor for over 20 years, contributing to titles including MSN Cars, Auto Trader, The Scotsman and The Wall Street Journal.

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