The annual Car of the Year contest kicks off with an incongruous get-together on a windswept beach in Denmark. Jury member Mark Tisshaw was there
At one point, the beeping had become so much that I thought I might end up with a permanent ringing in my ears. If you’re looking for a timely trend to underpin the new car class and those models about to descend on us, it’s intrusive and distracting active driver ‘assistance’ functions bonging at you for various tenuous reasons.
When the number of cars doing this at a special test drive event hits double figures, you start to notice some differences between the beeps and the bongs. A particular ‘favourite’ was the Fisker Ocean, which makes a sound like the one you get from a Microsoft computer in tandem with a negative message popping up. You know the one: a short, sharp dong when your computer suddenly can’t find the printer it’s usually connected to when you most need it.
The noises from inside the cars were at odds with the peaceful surroundings of our test location. This is Tannis bay, Denmark, on the very north coast of the country, a good five-hour drive from the capital, Copenhagen – or a four-hour ferry crossing from Gothenburg, Sweden. This rural seaside resort is most famous for its long, flat beach on which you can drive for miles on end (sticking to the posted 30kph limit). Yet once every 12 months, a corner of the car industry descends on the location to test the year’s latest and greatest new cars.
Tannistest had its 45th running in September. The event is designed for the 59 Car of the Year jurors, from 22 different countries, to crystallise their decision-making ahead of shortlisting their favourite seven cars for the final Car of the Year voting. Autocar is a sponsor of the award, and yours truly represents the magazine on the jury.
This year, there were 22 cars from 14 different brands. In some ways, the event is like a motor show where you can actually drive the cars – models that are so new that the ‘big reveal’ covers could still be hiding in the boot. Only the Honda ZR-V, Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Lexus RZ had yet turned a wheel on UK roads, but even in the case of the Lexus, it was no ordinary RZ, because it featured the new yoke-type steering wheel that’s part of the steer-by-wire system coming to the UK next year. This takes some getting used to, and it’s ultimately hard to see much of a net gain as a driver – but technology innovations h
