Peugeot Beats Tesla as “Car of the Year”

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 5, 6:53AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Tesla Motors Inc.’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) management has become used to winning the top award in auto competitions. It has been named the best car ever tested by Consumer Reports and Motor Trend “Car of the Year.” But it was beaten out for the “Car of the Year Award” at the Geneva Motor Show, which is in its 84th year as a major showcase of the world’s cars and light trucks. The top spot was taken by the Peugeot 308.

The reviewers said that Tesla and others were not even close to the Peugeot 308:

For the third time, the Car of the Year was elected at the International Geneva Motor Show: the Peugeot 308 won by a clear advance of its competitors BMW i3, Citroën C4 Picasso, Mazda 3, Mercedes Classe S, Skoda Octavia and Tesla Model S.

The Jury’s decision was indisputable: The Peugeot 308 is Car of the Year. After intensive test drives, the sedan of the French manufacturer was chosen for its general balance and versatility.

Fifty-eight journalists from 22 nations did the voting.

Unlike the Tesla, the Peugeot 308 is a car aimed at the middle part of the market, and marketed for its extremely high gas mileage. It was launched in 2007, and an average of 200,000 Peugeot 308 units have been sold each year since 2008. Tesla might sell 50,000 of its Model S worldwide next year. And Tesla’s price is well over $60,000. The Car of the Year judges apparently wanted to name a mainstream car, not an exotic one.

The award is a bright spot in what has been a financially disastrous period for PSA Peugeot Citroën. It recently raised 3 billion euros from the French government and Chinese car company Dongfeng. However, PSA Peugeot Citroën’s financials are deteriorating so rapidly that the aid may not be enough.

Maybe the Peugeot 308 award will help the parent’s sales. Management of PSA Peugeot Citroën has to hope so.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.