Lexus and Toyota Dominate The 2023 Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Survey As U.S. Brands And EVs Falter

It’s a strong team.

Sister brands Lexus and Toyota received the highest scores in the 2023 Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Survey, which saw a poor performance from the American contingent.

The survey asks owners to note the problems they have had across several areas that include engines, in-car electronics and charging for electric vehicles.

Consumer Reports uses the results and historical data to compile a reliability score on a scale of 0-100.

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Lexus received a 79 and Toyota a 76 and Mini finished third with 71.

The highest-ranked American brand was Buick in 12th with a 55 score, which was followed by Tesla in 14th at 48 and Ram in 15th at 46.

Chrysler, which only sells two models, finished last with a score of 18.

Across specific model categories the top three were compact cars, sports cars and small pickup, while electric vehicles were at the bottom of the list.

Electric cars and SUVs in 15th and 16th and electric midsize pickups and electric full-size pickups in 18th and 19th bracketed conventional full-size pickups in 17th.

“EVs are still in their relative infancy as mainstream vehicles, so it’s really not surprising that manufacturers, by and large, are still working out the kinks,” Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports said.

“That said, we are seeing signs of movement in the right direction. And as our data has consistently shown, reliability-minded consumers would be best served by forgoing brand new vehicles in their first model year.”

Plug-in hybrids as a class were the worst and found to be 146 percent less reliable than traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) models, but hybrids without a plug were 26 percent more reliable than pure ICE models.

The plug-in hybrids have the most potential problem areas as they are effectively both EV and ICE.

“Hybrids continue to surpass EVs and ICE vehicles for reliability even though hybrids are more complex with gas-powered engines supplemented by an electric drive system,” Fisher said. “This is because hybrid technology is now over 25 years old and is offered mainly from the most reliable automakers.”

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Consumer Reports will be adding a few criteria next year that will deduct points for vehicles that don’t have pedestrian-detecting automatic emergency brakes and also those with advanced driver assistance systems, like Tesla’s Autopilot, that aren’t equipped with adequate driver monitoring systems that can safely deactivate themselves if the driver is inattentive.

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