Masahiro Moro serves as the current Chairman and CEO of Mazda North American Operations.
Mazda
Mazda has just topped Consumer Reports’ annual rankings of the most trusted car brands for the first time.
Mazda’s sales in North America grew last year despite the Covid pandemic, thanks to the popularity of its seven-seater CX-9 sports utility vehicle and CX-30 crossover.
BMW, Subaru, Porsche and Honda rounded out the top five spots on the Consumer Reports 2021 Brand Report Card, which was unveiled on Thursday.
Alfa Romeo falls under the list of 32 brands under Land Rover, Mitsubishi, Jeep and Lincoln.
To determine the rankings, Consumer Reports buys vehicles anonymously from dealers for road testing. It conducts tests for braking, handling, comfort, convenience, safety and fuel consumption, and includes the responses to the consumer reports in the analysis.
In 2020, Porsche and Genesis (owned by Hyundai) topped the report card. Consumer Reports said that Genesis dropped 13 places this year ‘due to the declining predicted reliability among its models’.
Lincoln saw the worst declines in the rankings and dropped 15 places to 28th. Consumer Reports noted that the brand’s redesigned SUVs, the Aviator and Corsair, performed well in road tests, but were ‘reliably well below average’.
Last year’s top car brand in America, Tesla, fell to 16 by five places.
Tesla Model Y
Tesla via Reuters
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle business has been “dragged down by reliability issues with the Model S, Model Y and Model X,” Consumer Reports said.
In the US, Tesla recently voluntarily recalled tens of thousands of its older Model S and Model X vehicles due to faulty touchscreens that pose a safety risk to drivers. In November, Tesla also recalled about 9,500 Model X and Model Y vehicles due to faulty roof decoration and bolts.
Tesla scored high on owner satisfaction and did well in road tests, Consumer Reports said. But only the Model 3, the cheaper affordable sedan from Tesla, had a high reliability and overall score to be recommended by Consumer Reports.
Just behind Tesla, Mini, Kia and Volkswagen lagged behind, all following in Tesla’s footsteps and now offering pure electric batteries.
At the bottom of Consumer Reports’ 2021 rankings were Mitsubishi, Land Rover and lastly Alfa Romeo. Consumer Reports said that Alfa Romeo dropped by 5 places due to ‘impaired reliability’ and poor performance in road tests.
– CNBC’s Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.
Correction: This story has been revised to correct that the Mazda CX-9 has seven seats and that the CX-30 is a compact crossover.