Consumer Reports' Auto Brand Survey Ranks This German Automaker #1: Here's How Tesla And Others Fared

Consumer Reports, a non-profit organization that does independent testing and research as well as advocacy, recently released its rankings of 32 auto brands based on the overall scores of their models.

BMW Takes Top Honors: German legacy automaker BMW AG BMWYY was ranked the number one auto brand, with a combined score of 81.

The criteria Consumer Reports use for evaluating and compiling the overall score included road-test performance, reliability, owner satisfaction and safety. The overall score for a brand is based on the average from all tested models.

BMW moved up two spots to take the crown from last year’s leader and Japanese automaker Subaru. Subaru is currently ranked second with a score of 79.

In third place was BMW’s MINI brand, while Toyota Motor Corp.’s TM Lexus luxury brand and Honda Motor Corp. HMC took the fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

The Toyota brand and Hyundai Motor Company’s HYMTF Genesis luxury brand took the sixth and seventh positions, respectively, with a score of 76 each. Consumer Reports noted that Genesis made the biggest leap in rankings, as it rose 12 positions due to its improved reliability.

Mazda Motor Corp. MZDAY, which was ranked second in 2022, fell to the eighth position in 2023. Volkswagen AG’s VWAGY Audi and Hyundai’s Kia rounded off the top ten with rankings of ninth and tenth, respectively, with scores of 74 and 73.

Among the brands edged out of the top 10 were Porsche and Nissan Motor Company’s NSANY Infiniti brand.

Ford Motor Company’s F Lincoln brand climbed 10 places on the strength of reliability and added safety systems.

Tesla Improved Show: Electric vehicle giant Tesla, Inc. TSLA improved its ranking from the 23rd position in 2022 to the 17th spot. The EV maker also saw an improvement in the overall score from 60 to 66.

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Top 10 Vehicles: Consumer Reports zeroed in on the top 10 vehicles for 2023 from a list of more than 200 models, with each representing a key vehicle segment. The organization mandates that all top picks must come standard with key safety features, including automatic emergency braking that operates at highway speed and includes pedestrian detection.

“Simply put: These are the vehicles that our expert staff would enthusiastically recommend to family and friends,” Consumer Reports said.
Five of the top 10 vehicle picks were hybrids and two were EVs. Six of these vehicles earned the organization’s "Green Choice Designation," which requires being among the top 20% of vehicles that emit the lowest amount of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

The top 10 vehicles categorized based on their pricing were:

Under $25K