EDITORIAL: Electric vehicles? Let the buyer beware

Article content

Aside from the fact they cost more and have less range than conventional cars, here’s another reason to be wary of running out and buying an electric vehicle despite massive government hype to do so.

A survey by Consumer Reports released last week found that owners of EVs for the past three model years reported 79% more problems with their cars than owners of conventional internal combustion engine vehicles powered by gasoline.

Consumer Reports annual car reliability survey was based on owner responses involving more than 330,000 vehicles covering 20 potential problem areas including engines, transmissions, electric motors, leaks and infotainment systems.

“Most electric cars today are being manufactured by either legacy automakers that are new to EV technology, or by companies … that are new to making cars,”  said Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing for Consumer Reports.

“It’s not surprising that they’re having growing pains and need some time to work out the bugs.”

He said some of the most common problems reported by EV owners were issues with electric drive motors, EV batteries and charging, the latter related to the vehicle itself, rather than with home or public charging stations.

Consumer Reports noted that Tesla has had more experience than any other automaker in manufacturing EVs and this year it is giving “recommended status” to Tesla’s Model Y for the first time, in addition to its Model 3 version.

Steven Elek, head of the auto data analytics program at Consumer Reports, cautioned that while “Tesla powertrains are now pretty solid for the most part … Tesla owners report a lot of build quality issues including irregular paint, broken trim, door handles that don’t work and trunks that don’t close.”

The Consumer Reports survey suggested car buyers should be particularly wary of plug-in hybrid vehicles, whose owners reported 146% more problems than owners of gasoline-powered vehicles.

By contrast, owners of traditional hybrid vehicles, which have both a conventional powertrain and an electric motor but do not require plug-in charging, reported 26% fewer problems than owners of gasoline-powered vehicles.

“Automakers have been making hybrids long enough that they’ve gotten really good at it,” Elek said.

Traditional hybrids, unlike EVs and plug-in hybrids, do not qualify for government subsidies.