For the 20th edition of Indian Car Of The Year, it is the Mahindra Thar Roxx that takes the crown, fending off tough competition from multiple corners.
The Mahindra Thar Roxx wins the 2025 edition of the Indian Car Of The Year. The list of contenders included the BYD eMAX 7, the Citroen Basalt, the MG Windsor, the Tata Curvv, the Tata Curvv EV, and the Tata Punch EV.
While the ICOTY 2025 crown went to the Mahindra Thar Roxx (139 points), the second place went to Maruti Suzuki Dzire (137 points) followed by the Maruti Suzuki Swift in third place. The ICOTY winners over the past five years have been the Hyundai Exter (2024), Kia Carens (2023), Mahindra XUV700 (2022), Hyundai i20 (2021), and Hyundai Venue (2020).
The Green Car of the Year of 2025 award went to the MG Windsor EV (157 points), with the BMW i5 (99 points) in the first runner up position, and the BYD Seal (87 points) rounding off the podium. The list of contenders was extensive, including, the BYD eMAX 7, the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, the Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV, the Mini Countryman EV, the Tata Curvv EV, and the Tata Punch EV.
Last year the winner was the Hyundai IONIQ5, and the previous winners of this prestigious award were the Kia EV6 (2023), the Audi e-tron (2022), and the Tata Nexon EV (2021). This award category was introduced in 2021, so there are no winners before that.
Finally, the 2025 Premium Car of the Year was taken by the Mercedes-Benz E-Class (140 points), followed by the BMW 5 Series (107 points) in second place and Kia Carnival (65 points) in third place. The list of competitors for this one were quite varied, comprising the, BMW i5, the BMW M5, the BYD Seal, the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, the Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV, and the Mini Cooper S.
Last year this award went to the BMW 7 Series, and the previous winners were the Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 (2023), Mercedes-Benz S-Class (2022), Land Rover Defender (2021), BMW 3 Series (2020) and the Volvo XC40 (2019).
Some of the senior-most and highly-experienced journalists from top India automotive publications and online portals evaluated the contenders for the ICOTY 2025. The evaluation process, which was established in 2005, has evolved over time, but the core ideals remain the same, as the cars were evaluated on a wide range of criteria, such as price, fuel-efficiency, styling, comfort, safety, performance, practicality, technological innovation, value for money, and suitability for Indian driving conditions.
After the evaluation is completed, the car that receives the highest points total wins the Indian Car Of The Year title, the most honourable award for an automobile in the Indian industry. ICOTY has been greatly supported by JK Tyres. Their assistance has helped ICOTY achieve the legitimacy and credibility it has today.
The list of the Jury members for ICOTY 2025 edition includes our very own Aspi Bhathena (Editor, Car India) and Joshua Varghese (Principal Correspondent, Car India) along with Dhruv Behl and Ishan Raghava of autoX, Yogendra Pratap and Dipayan Dutta from Auto Today, Sirish Chandran and Aatish Mishra of Evo India, Pablo Chaterji and Kartik Ware from Motoring World, Kranti Sambhav and Rohit Paradkar of Overdrive, Vikrant Singh representing Carwale.com, Arpit Mahendra for Times Auto, Ameya Dandekar of Cardekho.com/Zigwheels, Kushan-Mitra of The Print, Abhay Verma of Turbocharged, Cyrus Dhabhar from Powerdrift, Bob Rupani representing Exploration Drives with Bob Rupani, Ashish Masih from Times Drive, and Sagar Bhanushali of CarWale.
