2 Myths Busted - Study Confirms Vehicles From EV Brands Most Unreliable, Hybrid Brands Very Reliable

One of the cornerstones of the battery-only vehicle religion is that because EVs are electric, they are more reliable. You will never convince an EV enthusiast that this is not fact. However, the data say otherwise. In its latest study looking closely at which brands are the least reliable, both Rivain and Tesla earn places of dishonor on Consumer Reports' list. At the other end of the spectrum, brands that are heavily hybrid are among the very best in terms of reliability.

Related Story: Busting a Myth - Hybrid-Electric Vehicles Don’t “Just Run on Fossil Fuels”

Theoretically, EVs should be reliable. They could be reliable. They may someday be more reliable than other technologies. Unfortunately, shoulda coulda someday doesn’t add up to “are reliable.” Instead, what seems to matter most is the brand building the vehicle. When it comes to quality, durability, reliability (QDR), and all the other similar words, Toyota and Lexus always come out on the podium. If you have any background on Toyota and Lexus, you know that “QDR,” as the insiders call it, is the foundation of the brand. Not speed, not style, not aesthetics. QDR. In the latest study by Consumer Reports, Toyota, and Lexus are the second and third best in terms of reliability among all brands. Who was first? Subaru. What’s special about Subaru? Well, there are many good things, but importantly, Toyota is a big stakeholder in Subaru, and Subaru and Toyota share a lot of production space and even models like the BRZ-GR86 and the Soltera-bZ4x. Numbers one, two, and three in terms of reliability are all Toyota-related brands, and they all make mostly hybrids and conventional powertrains. Mostly. Toyota and Subaru both sell a handful of electric crossovers each month. Heck, Toyota started the whole EV crossover craze in 1997. 

Tesla and Rivian, by contrast, score at the very bottom of all brands in terms of reliability. To its credit, Tesla has been coming up. It’s now five spots above the very worst in the business. Rivian is the worst in the business , according to Consumer Reports. These brands built beautiful, exciting, desirable, and in some cases, even very high-value vehicles (Model Y and Model 3). However, according to Consumer Reports, they just don’t build reliable vehicles. There’s nothing wrong with that. Consumers can self-educate themselves and choose to buy a very nice, but unreliable vehicle. For many folks, that is a tradeoff that makes sense for them.  

Consumer Reports made sure to point out that vehicle reliability varies across all types of powertrains and even within brands. The Tesla Model Y, for example, scores average (not bad). Here's what Consumer Reports said about the more reliable vehicles: 

The most reliable models—from Hyundai, Kia, Lexus, and Toyota—have earned top reliability scores across a number of categories. For example, the Toyota Corolla Hybrid, Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, Hyundai Elantra Hybrid, and Lexus NX Hybrid are among the most reliable models in this year’s survey. Kia’s Sorento Hybrid is the most reliable three-row SUV, with the Toyota Highlander Hybrid close behind. 

If you subscribe to Consumer Reports, you can read the story using your online subscription (like we do), or you could murder a tree and read it in print, we suppose. Here is a link to the full story by Consumer Reports, so you don't have to go hunting for the source of our story. 

Now, if Consumer Reports was the only globally recognized and respected arbiter of vehicle reliability, it would be easy to poo-poo the ratings. The tricky thing for those who like to discount information that does not fit their preconceived notions is that pretty much every source of reliability data says the same thing. Check out the J.D. Power Dependability Study if you want a second source. If you are a ranking member of the EV jihad, you will pass these ratings off as "big oil propaganda." This is hilarious if you know any of the people at Consumer Reports, who we would count as some of the greenest humans presently exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide on the planet. 

Related Story: 5 Plug-in Hybrid EV Myths Battery-Electric Purists Wish Were True

So, which myths are busted? The first one is that EVs are more reliable than conventional vehicles. If that were true the brands that only build EVs would rank high among their peers. The second myth is that hybrids have all the problems of an EV and an ICE vehicle combined. If that were true, Toyota, which is trending towards being majority hybrid, would rank very low among its peers. 

Congrats to Subaru, Toyota, and Lexus for again ranking in the top three spots for reliability. The effort these brands have been putting in for many decades has borne fruit. 

If the facts in this story made your blood boil, then definitely don't read our related story from earlier this week titled Most Owners of New EVs Give Up The Often-Cited Maintenance & Repair Advantage. That story's facts are equally disturbing to some. 

Image of Tesla repair shop by John Goreham.

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John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.