22-05-2025
About MotorTrend
About MotorTrend
Established in 1949 by bona fide car guy and noted Los Angeles businessman Robert E. 'Pete' Petersen, MotorTrend has driven, tested, and reported on auto industry trends from the very beginning. That spirit of bringing readers closer to the cars of today and tomorrow still shines through in everything we do.
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Anchored by the 75-plus-year-old MotorTrend magazine and our world-famous 'Of The Year' award programs, we're all about informing, entertaining, and empowering everyone from the most casual car buyer to the hardcore enthusiast. We evaluate the latest cars, trucks, and SUVs, and we strap our test gear to them to find out how they perform on the track.
Every EV is subjected to our thorough Road-Trip Range testing, and our proprietary Ultimate Car Rankings system rates all of the newest and hottest vehicles.
When you want to know what's happening now and where things are headed, we have you covered through cutting-edge automotive news coverage here on our in-depth and long-running website, which features thousands of diverse stories and world-class photography.
You can also experience MotorTrend through our vibrant social media presence, our live events, and our award-winning videos which can also be found on our massively popular YouTube channel.
Why Trust Us
Every year, our expert MotorTrend editors evaluate hundreds of cars, trucks, and SUVs across the market through extensive reviews, in-depth instrumented tests and ratings, and comparisons designed to stretch those vehicles' limits and examine their attributes.
Our editors rely on their decades of experience and draw from deep industry connections to help bring the highest-interest future cars and the cutting-edge automotive technology of today and tomorrow to our audience.
Everything we do is subjected to our rigorous standards for quality and impartiality. Although we work closely with automakers to gain exclusive insider access to their vehicles, we are in no way beholden to them.
We maintain a wall of editorial integrity between us and advertisers that allows us to speak freely and frankly about the vehicles we're evaluating. In short: Our MotorTrend views are our own.
Readers can rely on the information they read to be highly accurate and curated by our editors. Our MotorTrend Ultimate Car Rankings, for example, employ an algorithm that relies on our opinions and the data we collect to provide a fair and accurate analysis of what we believe to be the best cars, trucks, and SUVs on the market.
The ratings are augmented by a wealth of information and tools designed to help car shoppers find the best vehicle for their needs.
About Vehicle Testing & Ratings
MotorTrend Car of the Year was first awarded in 1949, and more than 75 years later, it has grown into a family of the most prestigious and rigorously conducted independent automotive awards programs in the world, covering high-performance, economy, and luxury cars, along with SUVs and trucks of all shapes and sizes.
MotorTrend's Car, Truck, and SUV of the Year programs are the most rigorous and credible in the industry; rooted in our instrumented testing performed at expansive proving grounds, with expert judges pulled from MotorTrend's editorial staff and across the automotive industry. Vehicles are evaluated against six key criteria: Value, Safety, Efficiency, Engineering, Design, and Performance of Intended Function.
Our awards don't stop there. We also feature our Person of the Year and Power List, industry-focused honors designed to highlight the movers and shakers shaping the business.
More recently, we've been recognizing the best and brightest individuals transforming the future of the automotive universe and the technologies they're developing through the MotorTrend Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Innovator Awards. The SDV awards identify, elevate, and celebrate those leading the automotive industry's paradigm shift from hardware to software after an intensive selection process by our senior editorial staff.
Our newest accolades are our Best Tech awards, which seek out the most impressive automotive software and technologies on the market. Winners are chosen based on innovation, user experience, usefulness, value, and where applicable, safety and privacy.
MotorTrend also has an extensive Buyer's Guide shopping portal headlined by our Ultimate Car Rankings—our sophisticated car-ratings system designed to help you find a new car in a way only MotorTrend can.
The best rankings system in the business empowers consumers and No. 1-ranked brands alike across 50 segments and 300 vehicles scored. We put 75 years of testing and car-reviewing experience into our rankings system, which evaluates vehicles the way real car shoppers do.
Editorial Integrity
The MotorTrend team's skill sets are diverse and varied. We pride ourselves on presenting expertly edited and highly curated stories to our readers that feature our unique perspective mixed with objective analysis garnered from our extensive testing regimen and data tools.
We rely on our decades of experience and expertise honed in covering the entire automotive industry to cut through the marketing and advertising noise and get to the heart of what our readers need to know about the latest SUVs, cars, and trucks. In addition, every story we do is subjected to a rigorous editing process that further strengthens it before publication.
What you'll read from us through our detailed vehicle reviews, news reports, and engaging feature stories is nothing less than unbiased, factually accurate, and entertaining. We answer to no one but our readers. We're not often wrong, but when we are, we own up to it and make it right.
MotorTrend's editorial mission is further strengthened by our world-class technical teams, which provide insightful analysis as a result of in-depth, meticulous, and expansive instrumented testing. The data they provide are often critical in helping our editors decide which vehicles will be crowned with one of our prestigious 'Of The Year' awards, or provide context when evaluating an electric vehicle's real-world range or fast-charging capabilities.
Affiliate Disclosure
MotorTrend participates in affiliate marketing programs, and as such we may earn commissions on products purchased through links to retailer sites. The products featured on MotorTrend, however, are independently tested and researched by our editors. We always put the consumer first and recommend only products that we stand behind.
Privacy Policy
We take the trusted relationship we have with our readers very seriously and to make sure they are protected while using our site, we maintain a strict privacy policy.
About MotorTrend Magazine
MotorTrend magazine first appeared on store shelves in September 1949, produced by the famed Petersen Publishing Company in Los Angeles and bearing the tagline 'The Magazine for a Motoring World.' Since then, MotorTrend has been motoring forward in print to become an automotive institution that just celebrated its diamond anniversary. MotorTrend is a true lean-back experience, featuring world-class photography and design, highly curated words, and in-depth analysis and information you'll come back to again and again.
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Contact Us
To reach MotorTrend's editorial department, please email motortrend@ or write us at: MotorTrend 2004 Park Pl, Unit-K, El Segundo, CA 90245
