It happens sometimes that a competitor blows away all the other contenders. There should be a choice but there’s no choice, and this is what happened at this year COTY (Car Of The Year) award. Both Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine give a COTY award, and I guess they’re both looking closely at what the other is doing as they gave their awards the same day. And guess what, the same car won both awards: the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid.

That’s very logical to me as the Volt opens a whole new era for the automobile as we know it. Much more than the Prius a few years back. The Prius is a fantastic hybrid, everybody agrees on that, but in everyday practice, it’s nothing more than a superbly efficient gasoline car. Whereas the Volt brings something new, and never seen before, a choice of energy. You fill the tank at the gas station, or you plug at your home.

With that choice offered, it hardly matters that the Volt is a good or bad car (well, actually, it’s a pretty good), to be able to choose your energy entitles the Volt to get COTY awards all over the world.

I’ve embedded after the jump the videos from both Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine. Warning, you’ll have to pause one as they both start automatically when the page loads.