Chevrolet Volt Named MotorWeek Best of the Year

MotorWeek named it Best of the Year because of its game-changing technology. The Volt, the electric sedan from Chevrolet, has amassed numerous awards already in the automotive season, including North American Car of the Year, in spite of the fact that is only for sale in limited distribution across the United States. The Volt was also named Motor Trend Car of the Year (as was the Plymouth K car way back when) as well as Green Car of the Year and an Automobile Magazine top choice.

Yet, this is a car truly only automotive journalists and a few owners love at this point because it is in such limited availability. J.D. Power and Associates expects only 20,000 electric vehicles to be sold in 2011, which makes electric vehicles a miniscule part of the automotive market, yet managing to grab a lion’s share of the attention.

There were a couple of instances where MotorWeek couldn’t decide who some of the winners should be so it took the easy way out and presented dual awards. The best large utility went to the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Dodge Durango. Maybe there was an element of pity vote involved because those two SUVs had competed against the Ford Explorer for North American Truck of the Year that the Explorer eventually won.

Things really got interesting when it came to Dream Machine. The staff at MotorWeek, which can’t extravagantly paid because it does work in public television, selected three vehicles: the Audi R8 Spyder, the correctly spelled Alfa Romeo 8C Spider, and the Bentley Continental Supersports Convertible. Apparently, the Alfa Romeo is the ultimate dream vehicle because only 35 were imported to the U.S. in 2010.

The Motor Week awards were presented at the Chicago Auto Show media days prior to the opening of the show on Feb. 11. It runs through Feb. 20 at McCormick Place in Chicago.