The annual car reliability survey by Consumer Reports found EVs are 79 percent more likely to have problems than conventional cars. Consumers reported electric drive motors, charging and EV batteries had the most common issues associated with EVs, according to the survey.
Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports, noted that there may be “growing pains” among EVs because they are based on new technology or are being manufactured by new upstart companies, such as Rivian. He said companies “need some time to work out the bugs,” according to the magazine.
Plug-in hybrids are more likely to have more issues than gas-powered cars, EVs and hybrid vehicles. The survey said that plug-in hybrids have 146 percent more problems than gas-powered cars.
I had to do some serious digging on this. They previously listed the Chevy Bolt as expected to have good (not excellent) reliability in terms of batteries and motors. A few years later, reviewing their ratings for those same years, it dropped to very bad.
Once I filtered out the noise (and trust me, there was a lot), it seemed that they were counting recalls as failures. And to be clear, the Bolt had a very significant battery recall that drove most of this. But being a recall, these were all covered for free, and most of the repairs were done before failure (as parts became available).
While these were technically failures, they are not the type of data that people generally look for. I want to know how likely I’m going to be stuck with a repair bill (especially a big one), and how often I’m likely to be going in for service. Neither of which is covered by this data.
Look I’m all for EVs, but massive recalls absolutely should count as failures. Them covering it just means the company isn’t pure trash.
It’s a valid point of view, but I don’t think that’s what most people use these reliability ratings for. At least for me personally, I use it as a way to gauge the likelihood of future failures. At least in the past, CR has explicitly stated this as part of their methodology. I don’t think the recall is indicative of future issues.