CR: Hyundai’s Genesis Brand Outscores German, Japanese Rivals

Hyundai Motor Corp.’s Genesis luxury brand outranked all others in this year’s Consumer Reports ratings of automotive brands sold in the U.S.

The rankings are determined by a combination of satisfaction surveys, owner-reported problems, road evaluations by CR and crash test results by government and insurance agencies.

In this year’s ratings, Genesis earned a score of 81, followed by Audi (80), BMW (79), Lexus (77) and Porsche (77). Rounding out the top 10 are Kia (76), Subaru (76), Tesla (74), Honda (73) and Toyota (72).

CR notes that its rankings reward carmakers that are able to maintain high performance levels across multiple models and in spite of the challenges of launching all-new vehicles. The magazine says reliability issues are most often to blame for low scores.

This year’s largest improvement came from the Chrysler brand, which picked up 4 points and moved up to 11th place with a score of 70.

The largest declines were posted by Buick, which lost 8 points and dropped to 19th place with a score of 64, and Acura, which lost 6 points and slid to 22nd with a score of 62.

Mercedes ranked 15th with a score of 67. Cadillac placed 24th with 60 points.

CR says the worst-rated car brands for 2018 are Fiat (39), Jeep (48), Land Rover (49), Alfa Romeo (49) and Mitsubishi (50).