Michigan, United States —A new study by J.D. Power appears to suggest a suspected industry trend–that vehicle build quality has been dropping.
According to the 2022 U.S. Initial Quality Study, the automotive industry is experiencing an 11 percent increase in problems per 100 vehicles, resulting in an industry average of 180 problems per 100 vehicles.
“Given the many challenges automakers and their dealers had to face in the past year, it’s somewhat surprising that initial quality didn’t fall even more dramatically,” said David Amodeo, J.D. Power’s director of global automotive.
General Motors is one of the few to improve overall quality with its subsidiary, Buick achieving 17 problems per 100 vehicles, the best results of 2022. Similarly, Genesis maintained its top rank among premium brands.
Tesla had an uninspired 226 problems per 100 vehicles, which CNBC says replaced Mitsubishi as 7th from the bottom. The CNBC reports highlights that Teslas were notable for especially poor panel alignment and poor paint quality, with Asmodeo reportedly describing Tesla “a software company that happens to build vehicles.”
The 2022 study highlights that completely new models and premium vehicles were among the most problematic, but cites that infotainment systems were the biggest contributor to vehicular problems.
Similarly, the study suggests that battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids were more problematic with the caveat that the dominance of Tesla vehicles in this market obscured the performance of other automakers with similar offerings.
“Automakers continue to launch vehicles that are more and more technologically complex in an era in which there have been many shortages of critical components to support them.”
For the original release by J.D. Power, click here.
