Electrical autos improved within the 2025 J.D. Energy Car Dependability Research however plug-in hybrids received worse.
Launched Thursday, the annual research focuses on the speed of issues with new autos, as reported by house owners, with scores assigned primarily based on issues per 100 autos. The brand new outcomes are primarily based on issues skilled by the unique house owners of autos going again to the 2022 mannequin 12 months. The pattern included 34,175 responses from house owners gathered from August by way of November of 2024.
EVs improved by 33 issues per 100 autos in comparison with the earlier 12 months’s research, whereas plug-in hybrids noticed a rise of 26 issues per 100 autos in comparison with final 12 months, when EVs have been discovered to be the most trouble-prone autos.
2024 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid
The hole between EVs and gasoline autos additionally narrowed considerably, J.D. Energy famous, now standing at 223 issues per 100 autos and 200 issues per 100 autos, respectively. Plug-in hybrids have been essentially the most problematic, at 242 reported points per 100 autos. Hybrids fared the most effective; such fashions with out a plug skilled the fewest issues, at 199 per 100 autos.
In a earlier research, J.D. Energy underscored that the powertrains aren’t in charge for all these points; somewhat it has been all the opposite tech that debuts in EVs. The 2025 Car Dependability Research signifies that tech-related points have gotten extra prevalent throughout the auto trade, with software program connectivity points among the many most frequent proprietor complaints, and simply 30% of householders saying that they noticed enhancements after over-the-air updates.
2022 Audi Q5 55 TFSI e plug-in hybrid
That contributed to a worse efficiency, as averaged throughout all the trade, on this 12 months’s research. The trade as an entire noticed issues per 100 autos enhance by 6%, averaging 202 issues per 100 autos.
However EVs proceed to carry out extra poorly than different autos in these research. J.D. Energy additionally famous a larger fee of owner-reported issues for EVs, in comparison with the trade common, in its 2024 Preliminary High quality Research. Shopper Stories’ annual reliability survey in late 2023 discovered that autos that plug in, general, are extra trouble-prone—and it famous that particularly applies to plug-in hybrids.
