Again, I’m not against them, I’m against forced purchasing. And, they just aren’t ready for primetime
Consumer Reports pummels electric vehicle reliability, praises hybrids
Electric vehicles may be the future, but in some ways they look a lot like the past. Particularly reliability.
That’s the bottom line from Consumer Reports’ eagerly anticipated annual reliability survey, which sounds like an ‘80s tribute act: the top tier, brands credited with excellent or very good reliability, is dominated by Japanese automakers, with a smattering of Europeans and a South Korean.
Unlike those bad old days, though, the culprits are advanced electronics, not oil leaks and faulty transmissions.
Electric vehicles are among the worst offenders.
“The problems with internal combustion engines are mostly sorted,” Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports senior director of testing, told me. “The new problems are mostly associated with electronics: Electric vehicles that use brand new platforms and power trains.”
Volkswagen ranked 27 out of 30 for overall reliability. I’ll get to them in a moment
EVs in model years 2021-24 suffered about twice as many reliability problems as internal combustion engines, or ICE, according to CR’s survey of about 70,000 vehicles.
The five least reliable vehicle categories, from bad to worse, are:
Electric cars
Electric SUVs
Full-size pickups
Midsize pickups
Electric pickups
Oops? And repair costs are astronomical compared to hybrids and straight petrol engines
Volkswagen was one of the earliest entrants into the electric vehicle industry, years before it became commonplace to own or drive them. Its efforts were on full steam in the wake of a diesel pollution scandal that engulfed the German brand.
But in recent times, Europe’s biggest automaker has been struggling to improve its returns amid falling demand and growing competition in the market.
Now, the automaker is on a mission to overhaul its costs to improve earnings by about $11 billion by 2026. Volkswagen’s brand chief, Thomas Schaefer, warned that productivity and efficiency had to be boosted as its brand wasn’t as competitive anymore.
“With many of our preexisting structures, processes, and high costs, we are no longer competitive as the Volkswagen brand,” Schaefer said, according to a post on the company’s intranet site seen by Reuters.
Their EV push killed them. As someone in the business, rarely are customers comparing us and others with VW. And they are not a luxury brand, hence most loyal VW customers aren’t that interested in an EV. I’m hoping that EVs will get to primetime, I’m not a big fan of the pollution, such as smog and oil/gas in the roads (CO2 is not a pollutant), so, they are the future. They have many environmental problems on their own, as well as others. But, people do not want to be forced into them.
I gave up on Consumer reports when they considered Sears Kenmor appliances as top of the line, pure junk. Then they advocated for generic drugs, witch don’t work despite FDA assurance.
Kenmore appliances did carry the top of the line for reliability for several decades. As with many brands, they have suffered some quality control when they started outsourcing to China and Mexico. But since all of their competition did too, they are still near the top.
Most generic drugs are chemically identical to the brand name. Placebo effect is very strong in some people and they will never accept that non-name brand is “just as good” when they can feel that it isn’t.
Meanwhile, the leading cold ingredient that replaced pseudoephedrine is totally ineffective,, yet it is marketed as the leading cold med ingredient. Thanks, FDA.
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Who gave Consumer Reports permission to bad mouth a leftist idea? That’s not normal.
Good on Consumer reports for taking on such a political third rail. This is going to hurt them in the donations and subscriptions departments.
World wide sales show Tesla mod Y outsells both Toyota Corolla and Ford F 150 so far in 2023 making it most sold model.
In USA it ranks #2 in passenger car sales, only outsold by the much a cheaper Toyota model.
As for “not ready for primetime”???? EVs get better AND cheaper every year. That is one reason more aren’t sold, people know that they will be better and cheaper next year. But many many people choose to buy Teslas. all the other car companies are years and years behind in development. I don’t expect any to be catching up soon. And that includes Honda.
Tesla sucks & so does the moron that makes them. Stop kissing musks butt