Tesla owners like their car brand better, Infiniti works hard, says study

What is the best car brand? This is a powerful subjective question, but Consumer Reports once again intended to define a data-based answer with the results of its latest owner satisfaction survey. Once again, Tesla comes out on top and leads the group among the most appreciated brand owners. At the end of the pack is Infiniti, which has not received praise from the owners.

To understand the rankings, we first need to understand how the CoR achieved its results. The publication derived data from its owner’s satisfaction survey based on some questions asked to owners of 369,000 vehicle owners of the listed brands. The most important question asked to owners was, “Would they buy the vehicle again, if they had the chance?” These responses from the various models sold under one brand then combine for a score, which CR ranks further based on direction, comfort, value, car electronics and cabin storage.

Tesla comes in first with an overall score of 88 out of 100, although Lincoln surprised us with a second place showing and a score of 79. Ram ties third with 76 points with his cousin Chrysler, while Subaru and Hyundai tie fourth with 75 points. Porsche completes the top five with 74 points.

It is also important to recognize that some brands sell many more models than others. In other words, more owners have a chance to drop a brand like, say, Toyota, since it sells more models than Tesla. For example, Hyundai sells more than five different models, but the study only received enough answers to count five specific cars in the data. Who knows how more responses would affect the ratings, so it is best to just see this information without drawing important conclusions.

The CR needed to receive a minimum number of responses from the owners of a specific brand and model or they did not count. That is why several brands, including Genesis, Acura, Land Rover and others are missing from this study.

However, these data restrictions can also paint a pretty bleak picture. See Cadillac and Infiniti, for example. CR has only received enough responses to include two Cadillac and three Infinitis models. Even so, even with few cars, they rank in the last position, with scores of 59 and 48 points, respectively. In other words, there is an opportunity for fewer models included to increase their rating, but most of the responses to the few cars were very good.

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