COLCHESTER, CT — While luxury brands Porsche and Genesis claim the top two spots, moderately-priced nameplates are close behind in the latest Brand Report Card Rankings from Consumer Reports, the nonprofit organization committed to creating a fairer, safer, and more transparent marketplace for consumers. The annual rankings reveal which automakers are producing the most well-performing, safe, and reliable vehicles based on CR’s exclusive testing and member surveys. 

Brands from South Korea and Japan, including Genesis, Subaru, Mazda, Lexus, Hyundai, and Kia, claim six of the ten top spots in CR’s 2020 rankings.

Porsche jumped two positions from last year to claim the top spot, supplanting Subaru. Rounding out the top-ten are Audi, BMW, and Mini. Kia and Mini are the only two brands that are newly among the top group in CR’s Brand Report Card Rankings, replacing Toyota (down three spots from last year), and Lincoln (down five spots from last year).

“The brands at the top of our rankings do a great job of producing cars that perform well in our road tests, and are reliable, safe, and highly satisfying,” said Jake Fisher, Senior Director of Automotive Testing at Consumer Reports. "That's especially remarkable for brands like Subaru, Mazda, Hyundai and Kia that offer many affordably-priced options.”

In total, 33 brands are included in CR’s 2020 Brand Report Card. To determine the rankings, the organization considers only new vehicles that are currently for sale and that it has tested at its 327-acre Automotive Testing and Safety Center in Connecticut.

Consumer Reports conducts a battery of tests on every vehicle it evaluates, including braking, handling, comfort, convenience, safety, and fuel economy. CR then determines the Overall Score—a combination of predicted reliability, owner satisfaction, and CR’s hands-on analysis that includes road performance and key safety features and crash-test results, if available—for each brand model tested. The brands are then ranked by average overall score to reveal the best and worst.

Tesla was the highest climbing brand, jumping up eight spots from last year to 11th place this year. This was due to the improved reliability of its Model 3 and Model S sedans. The Model X is the lone Tesla that CR does not recommend. Brands that moved slightly up or down in this year's rankings tended to have either new or redesigned model offerings, such as Audi with the A6 and A8, or changes in predicted reliability.

Detroit brands landed in the middle to the bottom of CR’s rankings. Lincoln was the highest at 13th, though it tumbled five spots from last year due to the subpar predicted reliability of the new Aviator and Nautilus SUVs. Chrysler and Dodge each advanced by four spots to 18th and 21st, respectively.

The bottom of CR’s Brand Report Card Rankings is relatively unchanged from a year ago, with Fiat remaining last. Acura recorded the biggest slide from last year, plunging eight positions to 24th overall due to its unreliable MDX and RDX SUVs. Of the eight lowest-scoring brands, which also include GMC, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Cadillac, Land Rover, Jeep, and Mitsubishi, CR only recommends one of the 36 total vehicles it has tested from that group ꟷ the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

CR buys all of its test cars anonymously from dealers and does not accept free samples from automakers for any of its ratings or evaluations. CR’s testers drive a total of 500,000 miles annually in the vehicles it tests, which is the equivalent of circling the Earth twenty times.

For more information about Consumer Reports’ 2020 Brand Report Card, visit the Autos Spotlight online at https://www.CR.org/spotlight.