EyesOn Design Awards 2025: the winners
As a proud sponsor of the EyesOn Design awards, Car Design News can reveal the winning cars at this year’s event in Detroit
After wandering around the auto show calendar for a few years, the Detroit Auto Show is back to its traditional January date. Along with the show and the arctic weather, the annual EyesOn Design Awards has also relocated back to the start of the year. At an event on January 10, sponsored by Car Design News and others, the winners for 2025 were announced.
The jury featured a l-o-o-ng list of design luminaries including Anne Asensio, Ian Callum, Wayne Cherry, Michael Simcoe, Tom Gale and Jack Telnack (see the complete list below).
Cadillac was the big winner of the day, taking two awards, and Karma Automotive was a surprise winner for Best Production Car. BMW won an award for Best Interior. Here are the winners for this years EyesOn Design Awards.
Best Production Car: Karma Kaveya
The Karma Kaveya, a curvaceous and powerful super coupé was a welcome surprise: an all-electric American-made sports car. The Kaveya will feature a high-tech interior and equally high-tech electric drivetrain, with a base model offering 536bhp, and an all-wheel drive version with 1,000bhp capable of 0-60 in three seconds. It will enter a crowded market for electric sports cars, but Karmas are for those with a strong independent streak and a taste for American sports car luxury.
Senior design director, Nicolas David, speaking with CDN’s Freddie Holmes back in November, noted: “Something [we] have been working hard on is defining our version of ultra-luxury. For some brands, it is about chrome or certain garnishments. You’ll notice that our cars are very simple, and our ultra-luxury is more about the moving panels and the hidden features like the nod to pop up headlamps, hidden wipers and rear spoilers. It’s been challenging to define our version of ultra-luxury, but I think we’ve done a pretty good job so far.”
The EyesOn Design award seems to confirm that Karma is on the right track.
Best Concept Vehicle: Cadillac Opulent Velocity
Cadillac’s Opulent Velocity, a 2+2 hypercar, introduced at Pebble Beach last year, was a strong concept and one that points to a possible future design language. It also evokes the bold Cadillacs of the Motorama days of the 1950s.
The name Opulent Velocity represents the two sides of the experience of driving/riding in the car. “Opulence” is the experience of travelling on the street, with Level 4 autonomy allowing a hands-free riding experience bolstered by an advanced full-width dispaly and augmented reality HUD.
The strong coupé form features a long curving fastback and cab-forward architecture, echoing some of the from and lines of its cousin the Celestiq. The long hood of the days of yore has morphed into more mannered sculpting that extends into the sides of the car. Cadillac describes the design of the Opulent Velocity concept as “a testament to the endless possibilities that arise when we embrace the convergence of past, present and future.”
Innovative Use of Colour, Materials or Graphics: Cadillac Sollei
Another Cadillac concept that ties into the brand’s grand tradition of opulence. The high-tech interior is balanced by the extreme craftsmanship and exquisite use of premium materials. The leather, the wood marquetry, the brushed aluminum and innovative materials all hark back to the voluptuous Motorama years, as well as the glory years of the Art Deco Cadillacs from the 1930s.
The exterior design language echoes that of the Lyriq And Celestiq, grounding it in the present – or at least near future. The car, especially the interior, evokes great Cadillacs of the past, without being retro styled (or resorting to tailfins). Although introduced as a concept, the Sollei is intended to be a limited-production car for ultra-high net worth buyers. As Cadillac has said: “…the ultimate expression of a coach-built luxury electric convertible, Sollei pushes the boundaries of future bespoke commissions, tailored to the unique passions and interests of its clientele.” Just come with a Coupe de ville of cash.
Best design, Interior: BMW Vision Neue Klasse X
BMW introduced the Vision Neue Klasse X concept last year, a complement to the previously introduced Neue Klasse sedan concept announced in 2023. The ‘X’ is a mid-size SUV, or Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) in BMW parlance, and it is a preview of things to come in the BMW SAV space.
Inside, the openness provided by the panoramic glasshouse is matched by the simplicity and clarity of the instrumentation and controls, which seem to fade largely into the background. The jaunty parallelogram central touch screen makes another appearance here. Like the sedan, the Panoramic Vision strip shows information at the base of the windscreen and is augmented by the HUD. An updated version of this suite of information and contols was introduced at CES 2025.
BMW has championed a circular economy for automotive parts, and each generation of concept vehicles is an exercise in renewable and recycled materials. The seats and interior surfaces of the Neue Klasse X are no exception, with “Verdana”, a plant- and mineral-based material with no petroleum content used on surfaces, and environmentally friendly fabrics employed on the seats.