Plug-in hybrids fare worst
Consumer Reports decided to evaluate modern cars in terms of reliability, dividing them into different categories and separately evaluating electric cars. The result was a large and informative report.
So, if we talk about reliability in general, Lexus leads the overall brand ranking with 79 points, followed by Toyota, Mini, Acura and Honda. At the bottom of the list are Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, Volkswagen and Jeep. The report’s authors say they, as always, asked people about problems they had with their vehicles over the previous 12 months. This year, data was collected on more than 330,000 vehicles from model years 2000 to 2023, including several previously introduced 2024 models.
A large study has shown that electric cars break down more often cars with internal combustion engines.
If we talk about the number of problem areas in certain categories of cars, then electric cars perform best: they have only 12 problem areas. For other classes, the indicators are similar: 17 zones for cars with internal combustion engines, 19 zones for hybrids and 20 zones for rechargeable hybrids. But these are just types of problems that have nothing to do with the reliability of specific machines.
More indicative is the chart below, showing the number of specific problems on average for cars of a given class in comparison with cars with internal combustion engines.
As we can see, conventional hybrids perform best, while plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles perform much worse. These two classes break down on average twice as often as cars with internal combustion engines.
