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The state of the art continues to move. In cars, we're seeing greater performance in many areas and a slight shift in consumer priorities, inspiring our latest ratings recalibration.
If you tour the Cars section of ConsumerReports.org, you'll see some scores no longer match those in our recent Annual Auto Issue. We've recently modified our scoring system so that the individual ratings we give to certain aspects of a vehicle's performance align better with our testers' assessments and our written reviews.
For example, we're now giving more weight in our scoring to ride comfort and quietness, which are important to many car buyers. And with the acceleration and braking performance of many vehicles improving in recent years, we've raised the bar in those areas.
One recent example highlights just how cars continue to improve: The Chevrolet Corvette and Porsche 911 each delivered shorter braking distances than any other cars we have tested—ever. (Road tests on those impressive sports cars are coming soon.)
The tweaks mean some overall road test scores have edged up, while others slid down. In general, the movements are slight.
We think the scoring modifications better reflect the preferences of today's consumers and provide a more realistic perspective of how current vehicles stack up with one another. These scores are now reflected across ConsumerReports.org. (Of course, overall road tests scores cannot be directly compared between new cars and those tested years ago.)
Looking ahead, we anticipate tuning our ratings system as the market warrants to ensure we continue to provide the comprehensive, fair, and relevant information to consumers.
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