Advertise on podcast: The Drivecast

Today we're rolling out The Drive Awards, aka the Slashies, our annual celebration of the very best new cars and trucks on sale right now. We're running through the winners, the losers, the almost-got-it-rights—and we're peeling back the curtain to explain our picks and how exactly The Drive runs a comprehensive car review operation. Every year, we review well over a hundred new cars and trucks to see if the promises car companies are making actually bear out in the real world. Next, we take the top-scoring models in our six main categories that best represent where the market is today and subject them to a staff-wide debate to make our picks. And finally, we put the winners of each category through one more round of voting to determine who gets the ultimate prize: Car of the Year. This episode is special for another reason: The Drive's entire editorial team will be joining Joel and Kyle round-robin style as we walk through our thinking and methodology for each category. Get to know these names and voices, because you're going to be hearing from them a lot in the future. Without further ado, these are your 2026 winners of The Drive Awards, with links to the full stories explaining each pick on thedrive.com. Best Truck: Rivian R1T Quad Best Value: Honda Civic Hybrid Best SUV: Land Rover Defender Octa Best Performance Car: Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing Best EV: Nissan Leaf Best Hybrid: Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Car of the Year: Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing Chapters: 00:00 Intro 03:53 BTS of The Drive Awards 09:47 Best Truck with Joel Feder 17:24 Best Value with Andrew Collins 22:57 Best SUV with Caleb Jacobs 30:17 Best Performance Car with Byron Hurd 37:59 Best EV with Cyril Soliman 45:28 Best Hybrid with Adam Ismail 52:13 Car of the Year with Kyle Cheromcha 01:01:21 Outro

For our very first episode, we're taking a hard look at Volvo. The Swedish company once known for quirky wagons and safety innovations is in trouble after dumping billions of dollars into an early, all-in bet on electric vehicles five years ago that led to a mess of software issues and production problems, tanking reliability and dragging its global sales to dangerous lows. Last year, then-CEO Jim Rowan warned of "turbulent" times ahead for Volvo as tariffs scrambled its manufacturing plans—shortly before Volvo's Chinese parent company Geely replaced him with Hakan Samuelsson, who led the company through the boom years of the 2010s before retiring in 2022. Classic move to bring back the old guy. Samuelsson knows he has to nail this turnaround, and the first car launching under his watch is the Volvo EX60, a midsize electric SUV that represents everything Volvo is trying to get right—new platform, new motor+battery combo, new software stack, new everything. And Joel was on the ground in Sweden for the reveal event last week, where he grilled Samuelsson and the rest of the executive team to find out if Volvo's really learned from its mistakes, or if the company is doomed to repeat them. Check out all our exclusive stories mentioned in this episode: 2027 Volvo EX60 Feels Like a No-Brainer for EV Newbs With 400-Mile Range and Reasonable Price Tag Volvo CEO Says, ‘Good Luck, the Rest of You’ Legacy Automakers Volvo EX60 Debuting Next-Gen Infotainment System With Google Gemini AI Assistant Volvo Is Updating Five-Year-Old Cars With AI Volvo Keeping Apple CarPlay, Refuses to ‘Force You To Something’ Volvo Proposes 100-Mile Plug-in Hybrids as a ‘Bridge’ for Drivers with EV Range Anxiety Volvo Is Not Done With Wagons After All