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BMW tops Consumer Reports 2023 Brand Report Card

Feels like we wrote about Consumer Reports' 2022 Brand Report Car and 10 Top Picks a few weeks ago, but it was last April. So the mag is back with a ranked roster of 32 brands and 10 vehicles in four categories for your debating pleasure. Starting with the brands, last year's top three were Subaru, Mazda and BMW. This year, the Munich crew climbed two spots to win the prize thanks to "Superb road test scores and solid results in CR’s reliability and owner satisfaction surveys." Subaru narrowly fell to second, maintaining its four-year run in the top three. Mini, eighth last year, jumped five spots to get the last step on the podium. The rest of the top 10 were Lexus (up one spot from last year), Honda (down one spot from last year), Toyota (up three), Genesis (up 12), Mazda (down six), Audi (down three) and Kia (up eight). The magazine and testing outfit says its Brand Report Card "[reveals] which automakers are producing the most well-performing, safe, and reliable vehicles based on CRÂ’s independent testing and member surveys," and that "Brands that rise to the top tend to have the most consistent performance across their model lineups." Last year's top 10 had six automakers from Japan, three from Germany (giving Mini credit for England), none from the U.S. or South Korea, and five luxury brands. This year's list counts five makes from Japan, two from Germany because Porsche fell out of the top ten, two from South Korea, still none from the U.S., and four luxury brands. Buick again ranked as the best domestic, dropping to 12th after being 11th last year. The big mover was Lincoln, its 10-place jump up to 16th attributed to better reliability from the Corsair and Nautilus. Tesla's improved overall reliability saw it climb six spots to 17th. Dodge climbed one spot to 15th. Jeep got out of the penalty box in last to come second-to-last. Land Rover fell three places into the penalty spot.  CR's top 10 vehicle models The 10 Top Picks list is practically a new list. Only two holdovers made it to 2023, those being the Subaru Forester and Kia Telluride.

Kia's Australian arm wants a Toyota Land Cruiser-like SUV

The team in charge of Kia's Australian division is asking the company's top brass for a rugged, body-on-frame SUV with Toyota Land Cruiser-like off-road capacity. The model could arrive quickly if it's approved for production. "We need probably one or two bigger [SUVs], to be quite honest. That would help us dramatically," affirmed Damien Meredith, the chief operating officer of Kia Australia, in an interview with Motoring. He added there's room above the Sorento for a new SUV, and he requested a sturdy model capable of towing and going off-road. In the United States, Kia's biggest SUV — and the largest car it has ever put its name on — is the well-received Telluride (pictured) released in 2019. It's not as tough as the body-on-frame model Meredith has in mind, and it's not sold in Australia because it's currently only available with left-hand drive. Kia would need to create a new model to challenge the Land Cruiser Prado (which is smaller than the standard model, and sold as the Lexus GX in the United States) and the Ranger-based Ford Everest in Australia, but it might not have to start from scratch. In 2019, Meredith confirmed Kia and sister company Hyundai are jointly developing a body-on-frame pickup aimed at Toyota's Tacoma-sized Hilux and the Ford Ranger, Australia's best- and second-best-selling vehicles in 2019. Kia could follow the path blazed by its rivals and turn its upcoming medium-sized truck into a family-friendly SUV. This strategy would give its Australian division the Land Cruiser-punching model it's asking for, while allowing it to leverage the benefits of economies of scale by sharing parts across several model lines. Kia stressed the SUV on Meredith's wish list hasn't been approved for production yet, so it's far too early to tell whether it will be available in the United States. Offering it outside of Australia is a must, though. Toyota sold 18,335 units of the Land Cruiser Prado on the Australian market in 2019; even if Kia tops it with 20,000 sales, that's not nearly enough volume to justify developing a new car, even one built on an existing platform. We'll have a better idea of what the future holds for Kia's global SUV range when the aforementioned trucks make their debut. Both are expected on sale by 2021, so they're around the corner, and neither has been confirmed for the American market yet; Hyundai's version is unrelated to the Santa Cruz also under development. Related Video:    

Consumer Reports says infotainment systems 'growing first-year reliability plague'

The Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Survey (right) is out, and the top two spots look much the same as last year's list with Lexus and Toyota in first and second place, respectively. However, there are some major shakeups for 2014, with Acura plunging eight spots from third in 2013 to 11th this year, and Mazda replaces it on the lowest step of the podium. Honda and Audi round out the top five. This year's list includes six Japanese brands in the top 10, two Europeans, one America and one Korean.
Acura isn't the only one taking a tumble, though. Infiniti is the biggest loser this year by dropping 14 spots to 20th place. Other big losses come from Mercedes-Benz with an 11-place fall to 24th, and GMC, which declines 10 positions to 19th.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's not traditional mechanical bugs hauling down these automaker's reliability scores. Instead, pesky problems with infotainment systems are taking a series toll on the rankings. According to Consumer Reports, complaints about "in-car electronics" were the most grumbled about element in new cars. Problem areas included things like unresponsive touchscreens, issues pairing phones and multi-use controllers that refused to work right.