European COTY

The winner of the 2011 European Car of the Year awards has been announced, with the 2011 Nissan Leaf taking top honors, the same car our sister site, GreenCarReports, picked as the best green car to buy. This means that original candidates like the new Jaguar XJ, Mercedes-Benz CLS and BMW 5-Series were all overlooked in favor of the Leaf, reflecting the changing trend of what’s most important when judging new cars--green power. In spite of the lack of a large recharging network and the limited range, for the judges in this year’s awards, the Leaf represents a technical and...