The jury round for the Indian Car of the Year for 2022 has concluded. This year, the ICOTY (Indian car of the year) cars shortlist, was ironically a long one. Everything from small hatchbacks to large, burly off-roaders made the cut.

At the affordable end of the scale were the Maruti Suzuki Celerio, the Renault Kiger, and the Tata Punch. The list also included the MG Astor, the Skoda Kushaq, the Volkswagen Taigun, the Mahindra XUV700, and the burly Force Gurkha; all a little higher in terms of pricing, of course. On the higher end of the pricing spectrum were the Citroen C5 and the Skoda Octavia.

Now for those not in the know, ICOTY, regarded as the highest honour that can be bestowed on a four-wheeler made or assembled in India, recognises the most outstanding car, SUV or MPV launched in a particular calendar year. To win the four-wheeler in question must have strong relevance for the Indian passenger car market. It should also have set new benchmarks in the segment it operates in.

The ICOTY jury this year comprises of Yogendra Pratap and Rahul Ghosh from Auto Today, Dhruv Bhel and Ishan Raghava from autoX, Aspi Bhathena and Sarmad Kadri from Car India, Sirish Chandran and Aniruddha Rangnekar from Evo India, Kartik Ware and Pablo Chatterjee from Motoring World, Bertrand DSouza and Bob Rupani from Overdrive, Murlidhar S from the Hindu, Kranti Sambhav, Girish Karkera from the Times Group, Ashish Jha from Outlook Traveller, and Vikrant Singh from CarWale. Now even though quite a few cars were launched in 2021, the said jury shortlisted the strongest contenders for the jury round.

As for how the voting works, every jury member has 25 points to award. The maximum a jury member can give a car is 10 points. And the jury member must award points to at least five cars. Also, the top two cars cannot be awarded the same points, which means every jury member signals his or her clear winner.

The ICOTY 2022 will be announced this evening.