A new report shows that electric vehicles are less reliable than their gas-powered counterparts.
Owners of electric vehicles (EVs) continue to report many more problems with their cars than do owners of conventional cars or hybrids, according to the 2023 Consumer Reports’ reliability survey, released on Nov. 29.
On average, EVs were found to have had 79 percent more problems than gasoline-powered cars, when considering the past three model years, according to the report.
The least reliable were plug-in hybrids (PHEV), which had a whopping 146 percent more problems than gas vehicles.
Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports, said that it’s not all that surprising that gasoline-powered cars are more reliable than EVs because the latter are a relatively new technology and time is needed to iron out the kinks.
“It’s not surprising that they’re having growing pains and need some time to work out the bugs,” Mr. Fisher said.
What is surprising, however, is that the most reliable vehicles, per the survey, were regular hybrids.
Surprise, Surprise
The Consumer Reports survey showed that regular hybrids had 26 percent fewer problems than gasoline-powered cars.
This is an unexpected finding, given that regular hybrids have both have a conventional powertrain and an electric motor—and so potentially more problem areas.
Regular hybrids differ from their plug-in counterparts in several ways, including that their electric motors are supplemental while conventional powertrains are the main source of power. PHEVs, by contrast, rely on an electric motor as the primary powertrain.
Regular hybrids include the small-battery “mild” hybrid category, in which electric motors add some acceleration, provide some power for stop-start systems, and recover energy during braking.
“PHEVs are sort of like an EV and a conventional car rolled into one, so by their nature they have more things that can go wrong with them,” Mr. Fisher explained.
However, there were a few exceptions to the rule that PHEVs were the least reliable while hybrids led the way.
For instance, the Toyota RAV4 Prime, a plug-in hybrid, was one of the most reliable vehicles in this year’s edition of the annual survey.
By Tom Ozimek
