Not only is it enjoying immense success in Europe, with allocations for the year already nearly sold out in the region, the all-new NA5 BMW iX3 has now also added a new accolade to its name, taking home the coveted World Car of the Year (WCOTY) award at the 2026 World Car Awards.
This is only BMW’s second-ever WCOTY win, the first being the E90-generation 3 Series in 2006. Adding to the success, the electric SUV was also named the 2026 World Electric Vehicle of the Year, while BMW board chairman Oliver Zipse was also honoured the title of the 2026 World Car Person of the Year. With the three wins this year, BMW has now won a total of 11 awards in the World Car Awards’ 22-year history.
The award certainly bodes well for the brand and its electric future, and will serve as one of the strongest mark of confidence for its new Neue Klasse platform, which will underpin BMW’s EVs in the near future.
A key technological advantage of the Neue Klasse platform is the utilisation of an 800V architecture, as well as the switch to the more energy-dense cylindrical battery cells. Coupled with a more efficient Gen6 powertrain, the EVs built on the Neue Klasse platform could boast electric driving range as high as 900 km in a single charge, depending on the model.
READ MORE: BMW’s future Neue Klasse EVs promises up to 900 km of range on a single charge
In other categories, the Lucid Gravity was named World Luxury Car of the Year for 2026, beating out the Cadillac Vistiq and Volvo ES90. The World Performance Car of the Year award too went to an electric vehicle this year, specifically the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N, beating out the likes of the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray and BMW M2 CS.
The China-made Nio Firefly, which recently launched in Thailand, took home the title of the World Urban Car of the Year category, beating out the Hyundai Venue and Wuling Baojun Yep Plus (also sold as the Chevrolet Spark EUV in certain markets). Last but not least is the World Car Design of the Year award, which went to the Mazda 6e, ahead of the Kia PV5 electric van and Volvo ES90.
As always, winners of the World Car Awards are selected through a jury panel made up of automotive journalists from across the world. This year, a total of 98 jurors from 33 countries were responsible for the votes, with the results tabulated by global auditing firm KPMG.
