Consumer Reports has released its 2012 Car Reliability Survey, and each of the plug-in cars that have cracked the mass market in the US was the top-rated model for its brand.  

Consumer Reports has released its 2012 Car Reliability Survey, and the results aren’t pretty for US carmakers – Japanese brands earned the top seven spots, with Toyota and its siblings Lexus and Scion taking the top three. Ford, which only two years ago boasted excellent scores, now ranks second from the bottom.

For those who are following the slow but steady electrification of the automobile, there’s much more interesting news. Each of the plug-in cars that have cracked the mass market in the US was the top-rated model for its brand, and Toyota’s new Prius C hybrid earned Consumer Reports’ top reliability rating overall.

Charged readers may already know that the LEAF has the highest customer satisfaction of any Nissan model, according to the company (which hastened to point this out after the recent battery brouhaha). Now CU has rated it the most reliable in Nissan’s stable.

America’s top-selling plug-in, the Volt, took the highest score among Chevrolet models, and all GM’s nameplates rose in the ranking. Interestingly, Chevy’s Cruze, which is often compared to the Volt, earned only an average ranking this time around, an improvement from last year’s “dismal” score.

Source: Consumer Reports 
Image: Chevrolet