2023-11-30 12:46:58
Electric vehicles may be the future, but in some ways they are a lot like the past. Particularly reliability.
That’s the conclusion of Consumer Reports’ long-awaited annual reliability survey, which sounds like an homage to the ’80s: The top tier, the brands credited with excellent or very good reliability, is dominated by automakers. Japanese cars, with some Europeans and a South. Korean.
However, unlike those old days, advanced electronics are to blame, not oil leaks or faulty transmissions.
Electric vehicles are among the worst offenders.
“Most of the problems with internal combustion engines are already solved,” Jake Fisher, senior director of testing at Consumer Reports, told me. “The new problems are mainly associated with electronics: electric vehicles using completely new platforms and powertrains.”
Consumer Reports Brand Reliability Ratings:
1-Lexus
2-Toyota
3-Mini
4-Acura
5-Honda
6-Subaru
7-Mazda
8-Porsche
9-BMW
10-Let’s go
11-Hyundai
12-Buick
From 13th place down:
Infiniti
Tesla
Ram
Cadillac
Nissan
Genesis
Audi
Chevrolet
Dodge
Ford
Lincoln
GMC
Volvo
Jeep
Volkswagen
Rivian
Mercedes-Benz
Chrysler
More technology, more problems
“This is a very exciting time for the automotive industry,” Fisher said. “Electric vehicles are bringing important changes in technology and performance. “Cars and trucks that can go from zero to 60 in less than four seconds are becoming common.”
Electric vehicles from model years 2021 through 2024 suffered about twice as many reliability problems as internal combustion engines, or ICEs, according to CR’s survey of about 70,000 vehicles.
The five categories of least reliable vehicles, from bad to worse, are:
Electric cars
Electric SUVs
Full size pickup trucks
medium trucks
electric trucks
It’s rare that a vehicle category is so small that it’s easy to point the finger at specific vehicles, but with only two EV pickup trucks on the market (Chevy hadn’t sold enough electric Silverados to be in the survey), it’s safe to say :
The Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T fared poorly with CR readers.
Tesla has some quality issues to overcome when it finally starts delivering significant quantities of its long-awaited Cybertruck.
Electric vehicles have 79% more problems than ICE vehicles, according to the CR survey. CR excludes problems with commercial CD fast changers from the report. They’re an infrastructure problem, but they’re also another reason why many buyers are reluctant to commit to electric vehicles.
Hybrids were the big winners, with an average of 26% fewer problems
The worst performers were plug-in hybrid vehicles, an extremely promising technology that has a larger battery than a regular hybrid, so the vehicle can go further on electricity in everyday driving, but also has a gasoline engine for travel. long. PHEVs had 146% more problems than ICE vehicles.
“PHEVs are more complicated and automakers have less experience with them,” Fisher said. “Although PHEVs from Toyota, Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Kia are all very reliable.”
Consumer Reports’ Most Trusted Vehicle Categories:
compact cars
Sports/sports cars
small vans
Medium/large cars
Medium/large luxury cars.
compact SUVs
SUV subcompactos
Luxury midsize SUVs
Luxury compact cars.
luxury compact SUVs
Minivans
Two-row midsize SUVs
Three-row/large luxury midsize SUVs
Three-row/large midsize SUVs
Electric cars
Electric SUVs
full size pickup trucks
medium trucks
Electric pick up
Practice makes reliable, if not perfect
The poor reliability is not due to a problem inherent to electric vehicles, but because the technology and parts to make them are new.
“Electric vehicles are completely new vehicles with completely new powertrains and often built on completely new platforms,” Fisher said. “There are a lot of things that can go wrong, especially in the early days of adopting a technology.”
On top of that, there’s a double whammy, he said: Established automakers are new to making EVs, while EV specialists are new to high-volume car production.
Many electric vehicles are marketed primarily to early adopters, people who crave the latest technology. “Throwing all that technology into a new vehicle just complicates things even more,” Fisher said.
“Hybrids have been around for 25 years. They are established technology with higher reliability than ICE. And they are generally sold to practical people who are not burdened by the desire for new features and technology.”
Unforeseen Consequences
On top of all that, over-the-air, or OTA, software updates, which are promoted to allow automakers to fix problems and add features with one download, sometimes fail and require another OTA to fix an issue that may have disabled a system. key or the entire system. vehicle.
“If used well, OTAs are positive,” Fisher said. “Improperly used, they are a problem.”
The top automakers in CR’s reliability survey, Toyota and Honda, “are very conservative,” Fisher said.
General Motors and Ford, by comparison, “are dedicated exclusively to new technology and have moved away from the small and midsize sedans that were some of the most reliable vehicles in the industry,” Fisher added.
Fuente: Consumer Report- USA Today
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