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Tesla may be in the limelight when it comes to seducing luxury car buyers, but it has almost fallen to last in terms of Consumer Reports' latest reliability ranking.
The electric car manufacturer came in third among the 29 brands in the poll released Wednesday. Volvo and Cadillac are the only brands performing worse than Tesla, which lost six spots over the survey last year.
The best automotive brand of the survey was Lexus, followed by Toyota and Mazda, which gained nine places. Seven of the top ten brands come from Japan or South Korea.
On the other hand, the Detroit automakers misbehaved. The most famous American brand, Ford, is not present before 18th place. He was followed by Buick, Lincoln, Dodge, Jeep, Chevrolet, Chrysler, GMC and Ram before moving to Tesla.
"Domestic products are suffering from a few new products," said Jake Fisher, director of consumer testing at Consumer Reports. He added that the reliability of the changes made to some General Motors' designs has dropped, "Ford continues to have problems with its latest onboard connectivity system and Fiat Chrysler" remains at the bottom of the list. "
Cadillacs, for example, "drive so well" and can "cope" with imports, but suffer from reliability problems, he said. Cadillac was down one place from the year before in the survey.
Consumer Reports ratings are among the most watched because the publication is notoriously independent. Its reliability ratings are based on what readers say about the vehicles they bought.
When brands do poorly, it's often because the builders have not solved the problem of new, otherwise solid models they have presented. Tesla has however been the victim of a poor performance of the Model S luxury sedan, which has been on the market for about six years, said Jake Fisher, director of the magazine's automatic tests.
New features added such as air suspension have lowered its rating.
"The truth is that the S model is not an aging model, it is constantly redrawn under the skin," Fisher said. Tesla, because of its ability to frequently modify its models with the help of live software updates, is experiencing "these growth pains in a different way than traditional automakers."
Tesla said in a statement that the problem of suspension was due to a vendor problem and that it had been resolved. It "did not threaten the safety or motricity of the vehicle, and only appeared when the car was parked".
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While homeowners can trust electric cars in reliability, Tesla, in his statement, pointed out that the same model was the best among homeowners in terms of overall satisfaction in a survey conducted by Consumer Reports.
"Our cars are not only the safest and most efficient vehicles available today, but we take our customers' comments very seriously and quickly implement improvements every time we hear about problems." , says the release. has been ranked number one in the satisfaction survey of Consumer Reports owners each year since 2013, year of the first year Tesla was included in its report. "
According to Fisher, the X-Series crossover is worse in terms of problems, but the brand's most recent model 3 car – its first destination in the midst of the automotive market – was rated average.
In general, the reliability of car brands is worse when they introduce complex new technology or complicated systems. This was the case with Volvo's worst performance, Fisher said.
Russell Datz, a spokesman for Volvo, said he could not comment until he saw the full report.
How brands behave and their average reliability score:
1. Lexus 78
2. Toyota 76
3. Mazda 69
4. Subaru 65
5. Kia 61 (tie)
6. Infiniti 61 (tie)
7. Audi 60
8. BMW 58
9. Mini 57 (tie)
10. Hyundai 57 (tie)
11. Porsche 54
12. Genesis 52
13. Acura 51 (tie)
14. Nissan 51 (tie)
15. Honda 50
16. Volkswagen 47 (tie)
17. Mercedes-Benz 47 (tie)
18. Ford 45
19. Buick 44
20. Lincoln 43
21. Dodge 40 (tied)
22. Jeep 40 (tied)
23. Chevrolet 39
24. Chrysler 38
25. GMC 37
26. Ram 34
27, Tesla 32 (tie)
28, Cadillac 32 (ex aequo)
29. Volvo 22
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