EV brand rankings: Tesla slips despite better reliability as Rivian scores near dead last, legacy brands play catch up

Tesla EVs have somewhat of a reputation for low initial quality and questionable reliability, but it seems as though, compared to the other EV competition, the American EV maker isn't doing too badly. The Consumer Reports annual vehicle brand ranking pits 34 carmakers against each other across a variety of factors, including predicted reliability, owner satisfaction, and hands-on road tests.

In the 2024 model year, Consumer Reports's ranking highlights some flaws in modern EV startups and sees some legacy automakers that are jumping to electric also scoring some impressive numbers.

For starters, Tesla slipped to just shy of the middle of the 34-brand pack, ranking 18th out of 34, while Rivian came in 30th of the lot, with predicted reliability being the biggest question for the latter. Of specific note to buyers, the Tesla Model Y and Model 3 did rather well, with high owner satisfaction and passable predicted reliability, while the Model S and Model X didn't fair as well, coming in under the Lucid Air with overall scores of 63/100 and 54/100 respectively.

On to the worst of the lot, the 2024 Polestar 2 received rather poor ratings overall, with its predicted reliability the worst among the luxury electric sedans. Lucid, which is a brand that didn't appear on the brand ranking due to only having a single model in its line-up — the Lucid Air — seems to be a mixed bag, with the Air receiving a 2/5 reliability score, but a near-perfect road test rating of 94/100 for an overall score of 69/100.

The BMW i4, on the other hand, fared surprisingly well in all regards except predicted reliability, where it achieved a middle-of-the-road score of 60/100. It's no surprise, then, that BMW also topped the overall list of best brands for 2024, with a total score of 82/100 for the brand's tested line-up.

Hyundai and Kia, two other prominent EV makers, also climbed the overall rankings, scoring 10th and 7th out of 34, respectively. The highest ranked of the lot of Korean EVs was the Ioniq 6, with an overall ranking of 83 and a reliability score of 70/100. The Kia EV6 also impressed with an overall score of 77/100, although it got a middling reliability score of 48/100.

It seems as though, while EV startups, like Lucid, Rivian, Polestar, and, yes, technically Tesla, produce flashy EVs loaded with tech, the legacy car brands that are more heavily getting involved in EV production seem to be doing a better job of some of the finer details, like reliability.