Consumer Reports Reliabilty Rankings

[RMSko]

First off, my wife reads consumer reports from cover to cover and it does affect her decision making. Secondly, the results were right on mark with her BMW i4 as we've had it now for 2+ years and never once brought it in for anything because everything works perfectly. I've been fairly lucky as my AGT has had minimal problems, but I hardly think CR did Lucid a favor as you stated above. Bad publicity is bad publicity and Lucid needs to up their game a bit as far as quality control before the cars leave the factory.

I think far more people would simply Google something like “best 2025 luxury electric car” when buying a car. And if you do that you see that the Air is constantly at the top of the list across multiple services.

 

[Steveinarizona]

I subscribe to Consumer Reports, and very often make buying decisions based on its recommendations. For cars, I will definitely take CR ratings into account, but rely more on dedicated auto publications in purchasing decisions.I expect ratings will improve as more subscriber/Lucid owners experience the newer model year cars. I'm very happy with my Air--notwithstanding frustrating software bugs--but there is no way to spin the CR report as anything other than unwelcome.

My view is that CR is very good for reliability since it is subscriber reports, not haters and fanboys. But if one likes performance cars, like I do, I ignore much of the rest of the CR ratings although the detailed description of good and bad is helpful, and the road test reports can be excellent.

CR gave the Lucid Air a reliability score of 7 out of 100, an abysmal score. But the road test gave it a 94 out of 100, an excellent score.

 

[illopp00]

People still read CR? I drank the kool-aid for a spell, but the data they collect includes some subjective elements which is where their bias comes in. CR might be OK for a dishwasher, and if you want to drive an appliance then CR might steer you right. Honestly I think CR did Lucid a favor because consumers that make car buying decisions largely based on CR probably aren't the demo for this brand. They should stick with buying beige Camry hybrids.

Yeah the fact they haven't actually bought an Air Pure for a long-term test means they really don't have any ownership experience with the car....

 

[Steveinarizona]

I drank the kool-aid for a spell, but the data they collect includes some subjective elements

What subjective elements? I think there is probably some subjective elements in the interpretation of the data which all comes from vehicle owners. I don't know how, if at all, CR differentiates a vehicle that suddenly stops on a highway from one that fails to maintain a regen setting forcing the driver to reset it each time the car starts up. Put differently, do they weight the problems reported to them and how do they do the weighting?

I appreciate the fact that CR bases its reports on customer replies to its annual surveys instead of the views of a particular individual who has his own biases.

 

[borski]

I appreciate the fact that CR bases its reports on customer replies to its annual surveys instead of the views of a particular individual who has his own biases.

Those are not incongruent. I don’t know what the minimum number of replies is for CR, but if they got very few, and the data was not statistically significant, then the results, in effect, are not far off from “the views of a particular individual who has his own biases.”

 

[jbawden]

There is so much about CR that is just too polarizing to get into a online debate about it, and for what? From my experience with CR, the score of 7 is yet another data point proving that CR offers me absolutely nothing of value, but I'm also aware that I'm not a typical consumer.

 

[borski]

There is so much about CR that is just too polarizing to get into an online debate about it, and for what? From my experience with CR, the score of 7 is yet another data point proving that CR offers me absolutely nothing of value, but I'm also aware that I'm not a typical consumer.

It’s also hard to have a good discussion about it because it’s so broad. CR is great for dishwashers. I used them for mine.

But for cars? Dno. Cars are infinitely more subjective than dishwashers.

 

[victoryroad]

Consider the source and methodology which in this case involved what was apparently a small and probably insignificant sample size of early build vehicles. If one had a six sigma standard, then Lucid will not score well in every category, but as borski said, cars are subjective and my judgement is that my AGT is, while not bulletproof has gotten me across country twice without a problem and another ~25k miles at 3.4 miles/kWh efficiency reliably. We are early adopters and know full well the risks of such a decision but my AGT has justified the risk that I took and is a phenomenal vehicle in a class of its own in every respect.

 

[Steveinarizona]

Consider the source and methodology which in this case involved what was apparently a small and probably insignificant sample size of early build vehicles. If one had a six sigma standard, then Lucid will not score well in every category, but as borski said, cars are subjective and my judgement is that my AGT is, while not bulletproof has gotten me across country twice without a problem and another ~25k miles at 3.4 miles/kWh efficiency reliably. We are early adopters and know full well the risks of such a decision but my AGT has justified the risk that I took and is a phenomenal vehicle in a class of its own in every respect.

I respect CR's methodology BUT I think that @victoryroad and #Borski are correct that the score is probably based, at least in part, on a minimal number of reviews from early adopters (and CR has always suggested not buying any car in its first model year). CR will not give a reliability score unless it has a certain number of reviews.

It would help if Lucid buyers who are positive on their experience subscribed and gave a review. If you don't want to keep subscribing, don't. Just do it once to get the score up and have it more accurately reflect the reliability of the car.

 

[Jstaal]

If i would have bought any of my cars off of cr reports, I would have missed owning the most reliable cars i have ever owned or driven… i can only imagine the 2005 Review of the Land Rover LR3 , or my wifes 2016 Range Rover diesel lol, Alfa Romeo quadrifoglio.. all have been bullet proof.. I just have realistic expectations, as an automation engineer i know bugs randomly happen for no reason… all cars have issues, as they all have a human to machine interface..Reliability should not matter as much if a company continues to grow “while” also addressing known issues.. some issues may just not have a permanent solution yet.

 

[Steveinarizona]

If i would have bought any of my cars off of cr reports, I would have missed owning the most reliable cars i have ever owned or driven… i can only imagine the 2005 Review of the Land Rover LR3 , or my wifes 2016 Range Rover diesel lol, Alfa Romeo quadrifoglio.. all have been bullet proof.. I just have realistic expectations, as an automation engineer i know bugs randomly happen for no reason… all cars have issues, as they all have a human to machine interface..Reliability should not matter as much if a company continues to grow “while” also addressing known issues.. some issues may just not have a permanent solution yet.

My thing on reliability is if something goes wrong, take the car immediately and provide me with a quality (i.e. equivalent) loaner and I am happy. Things do go wrong no matter how good the manufacturer; how the company deals with the problem is the real test. But don't refuse me a loaner or make me schedule the service weeks out for anything other than routine maintenance and I am heading back to the BMW dealership (where the response to me was always bring it right in and we will have a loaner for you).

I think the real test for a luxury marque isn't if things go wrong (these are complex machines with tons of complex options that are not on mainstream cars) but how it responds to them.

 

[victoryroad]

My thing on reliability is if something goes wrong, take the car immediately and provide me with a quality (i.e. equivalent) loaner and I am happy. Things do go wrong no matter how good the manufacturer; how the company deals with the problem is the real test. But don't refuse me a loaner or make me schedule the service weeks out for anything other than routine maintenance and I am heading back to the BMW dealership (where the response to me was always bring it right in and we will have a loaner for you).

I think the real test for a luxury marque isn't if things go wrong (these are complex machines with tons of complex options that are not on mainstream cars) but how it responds to them.

100% agree and Lucid performs above and beyond in service. It at least matched Porsche, Audi, BMW and MB in my experience over the past 20 years or so. The 94 CR rating to me is OK, but compared to what exactly? Dynamically my AGT is much better than my 2013 and 2016 Panamera GTS's with NA V8 engines and in the canyons of the Rockies and VT as much fun as my 2015 991 Turbo S. No it is not a track weapon, but on public roads is unmatched IMO.