Hyundai Ioniq 6 tops AA Ireland Car Awards 2023

A total of 35 cars battled for honours in 13 categories.

The winners have been announced at the 2023 AA New Car Awards, with the motoring body naming the Hyundai Ioniq 6 electric saloon as its Overall Winner against a variety of new models that have arrived in Ireland in the past 12 months.

The awards celebrated their second year in 2023, while the judging panel includes members of the CompleteCar.ie team, among others, who whittled down the nominations to a shortlist of three models in each category. There were 13 categories in total, ranging from city car to luxury EV, while three finalists duked it out for the Overall Winner's trophy.

All-electric trio

The big prize was contested between three all-electric models - the BYD Atto 3, MG4 and the eventual winner, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 - while all three cars also received nominations in other classes. The BYD Atto 3 compact SUV was a contender in the Medium Crossover, Budget EV and Family EV classes, while the MG4 hatchback was declared the winner of the Budget EV sector. The Ioniq 6 was a nominee in the Family EV category, too, but it and the BYD had to give second best to the Skoda Enyaq in that sector.

The Enyaq wasn't the only Skoda to take away a prize from the awards, with the long-running Kodiaq seven-seat SUV taking the large crossover category, while the Fabia and Superb won the Supermini and Large Family Car classes, respectively to give the Czech brand the most category wins of any manufacturer.

Elsewhere, BMW was a three-time winner, taking the Performance award with the new M2 coupe, the best Compact Executive prize with the electric i4 and the Luxury EV award with the all-electric i7 limousine.

In total, seven categories at the awards were won by pure-electric vehicles, with manufacturers demonstrating that the latest models have a breadth of ability that should put them on the shortlist of any potential new-car buyer.

Not all of the winners were all that new, though. In particular the judges singled out the Volkswagen e-Up! - first seen in its current guise in 2019 - as Ireland's most desirable city car, while the Ford Focus, which debuted in 2018 (but facelifted in 2021), clinched the Family Hatchback crown.

Ireland's biggest-selling new-car brand, Toyota, had four nominations in the awards, but came home with only one trophy, with the Toyota Yaris Cross clinching the Small Crossover prize for the Japanese car maker. It was a similar story for Mercedes-Benz, which also had four nominations but only came away with one award, clinching the Large Executive prize with the all-electric EQE.

The award winners in full: