Consumer Reports Finds Plug-In Hybrids Have 80% More Problems

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Plug-in hybrids have been a controversial topic at CleanTechnica since 2014, when Chevrolet debuted the Volt. The Obama administration bought a slew of them for government workers to drive, thinking the move would save taxpayers money on fuel costs. It didn’t, for one simple reason — no one ever bothered to plug the damn things in!

Some think of plug-in hybrids as a “gateway” to battery-electric vehicles. People who own them will get used to plugging them in, so when they get a “real” electric car, doing so won’t seem so strange. Driving on battery power alone will introduce them to the quiet of an electric car. Since most plug-in hybrids have some form of regenerative braking, people will get to experience that feature of electric cars as well and never want to give it up. Then there are all the other advantages of driving in electrons, like lower cost of fuel.

Good Bye Range Anxiety!

Of course, the main attraction for buyers of plug-in hybrid cars is — no range anxiety! That’s a biggie, as stories abound of motorists standing in the pouring rain on a dark night in South Succotash trying to get a balky charger to start delivering electrons to their car. Why risk it, when there is a good old fashioned and reliable gasoline engine under the hood just waiting to be pressed into service?

For contrarians in the group, the arguments against plug-in hybrid comes down to this. Why pay for two powertrains when one will do just fine? Despite policy reversals, the number of high speed chargers is growing on a daily basis, making range anxiety mainly a thing of the past. As Nike might say — just do it!

A complicating factor in the plug-in hybrid debate is that the term can apply to several different types of cars. Some call the engine into use if you depress the accelerator more than a quarter of an inch. Need to scoot away from a stop light? The engine kicks in. Need to go uphill? The engine roars to life. The engine in a true plug-in hybrid is there to provide electrons to the battery when needed, not to power the driven wheels.

Manufacturers have played fast and loose with government incentive programs, building cars that fit the regulations instead of doing the job they are supposed to. Of course, many will argue that policymakers should know the automakers will cheat if they can and should do a better job of writing the rules in the first place.

Especially within the European Union, the car companies have foisted off thousands of so-called plug-in hybrids that are so poorly designed, they actually emit almost as much exhaust pollution as conventional cars. But they qualified for government incentives, which is the main reason they were offered for sale in the first place.

Recently, China has created a new class of vehicle called extended range EVs. Chinese customers were often disappointed with the 20- to 30-mile range of many plug-in hybrids and the government stopped providing policy support for those marginal cars. EREVs are now expected to have at least 60 miles of battery-only range and some models have double that. Around the spritzer station at CleanTechnica’s luxurious yet tastefully understated world headquarters, we think EREVs offer the minimum performance people should expect today.

New Consumer Reports Survey

Consumer Reports has just issued its latest reliability rankings for cars in the US and the results are shocking. Its data shows plug-in hybrids suffer 80% more problems than conventional cars. Now to be fair, some of the worst performing models, like the Ford Escape PHEV, are no longer in production. Still, several recent models such as the Mazda CX-90 PHEV, the Jeep Wrangler 4xe and Grand Cherokee 4xe, and the Volvo XC60 PHEV are included in the survey and all helped drag the reliability ratings for plug-in hybrid cars down.

This is bad news for those of us who want to see the EV revolution gain momentum. Cars that spend more time in the repair shop instead of on the road drag the whole perception of electric cars down. This is particularly troubling at a time when the federal government is doing all it can to destroy the EV revolution. That’s bad enough, but manufacturers are not helping by building crappy cars that are infested with glitches.

This year’s survey drew responses from 380,000 vehicle owners and covered cars sold from 2020 through 2025. When all the results were tabulated, Consumer Reports found that hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, have 15% fewer problems on average than cars with just a gasoline engine. EVs and PHEVs have about 80% more problems on average than gas-only cars.

“Many of the problems with EVs and plug-in hybrids are because they are newer designs compared to gas technology, so some kinks still continue to be worked out,” says Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. “By comparison, hybrids have been around for nearly three decades, and the technology is tried and true.”

In general, new models are more troublesome than older models. Even new versions of conventional cars are plagued by reliability issues. The survey shows Tesla is the most improved automaker, as its vehicles — except for the Cybertruck — have now matured enough to overcome early reliability woes. The Model Y is the now the most reliable new EV, the survey shows.

EVs from Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis are the least reliable models from each brand, largely due to a faulty integrated charging control unit that can cause a loss of power while driving. “The downside of sharing parts and designs across multiple models and brands is that a single fault can affect several models,” says Fisher. Hyundai and Kia have also had significant issues with their conventional cars that share common components.

Top Companies Build Top Rated EVs

Many of the hybrids with top reliability are based on already reliable designs or use hybrid powertrains that have improved incrementally over the years. “One major reason why hybrids tend to be more reliable is that they’re mostly made by brands that make reliable cars, such as Honda, Lexus, and Toyota,” says Steven Elek, program leader of auto data analytics at Consumer Reports.

By the same token, manufacturers who are known for building reliable cars also make reliable EVs. “Lexus is the third most reliable brand in our 2026 survey, and the automaker’s RZ SVU is the second most reliable EV. Similarly, BMW is the fifth most reliable brand overall in our survey, and its EVs are no exception: The i4, i5, and iX all have average reliability.”

Jake Fisher adds, “Building an entire car company from scratch is a Herculean undertaking and it can take years to work out the bugs. Tesla seems to have graduated from the problems that a startup automaker faces, but other manufacturers still have teething issues.”

After many years of producing its CX-90 and CX-70 SUVs, Mazda totally redesigned both of them for the 2024 model year and reliability has plummeted as a result. Mazda is now the lowest ranked Japanese automaker for new car reliability.

Reliability for electric cars from General Motors has suffered lately. Almost every model that uses the shared Ultium technology — including the Chevrolet Blazer and Cadillac Lyriq — has a reliability score of below average or well below average. Even the Honda Prologue, which was built as part of a short-lived partnership between Honda and GM, has below-average reliability, despite the Honda brand’s high overall ranking, Consumer Reports says.

A Lose/Lose Proposition

The takeaway from this year’s survey, if there is one, is that plug-in hybrids — at least the ones offered for sale in the US — are a lose/lose proposition for manufacturers and their customers. The herd mentality is creating a spike in demand for plug-in hybrid cars. Scout Motors, the new division of Volkswagen, is backpedaling furiously in its quest to bring battery-electric cars to market. According to the latest information, 80% of reservation holders have expressed a preference for plug-in hybrid powertrains instead of purely electric versions.

GM, Ford, and Stellantis are falling all over themselves to get plug-in hybrid models into production. Not to put too fine a point on things, some readers may recall when Cadillac tried to ride the diesel wave and rushed a diesel engine that was a reworked version of a conventional gasoline V-8 into production. The result was a disaster that nearly marked the end of the Cadillac brand.

We should also point out that many of the problems noted by those 380,000 people who participated in this year’s survey had nothing to do with the bits that make the cars go and stop. Instead, they involve software glitches in the infotainment and navigation systems that are now standard in most new cars.

Be that as it may, if I were looking for a new car today, I would eliminate any plug-in hybrids from my decision-making process. Buying one is just asking for trouble. Range anxiety is not enough or a reason to take on the headaches and frustrations of a car that spends more time in the repair shop than in your garage. When it comes to the current crop of plug-in hybrids (Chinese made EREVs may be more reliable), channel Nancy Reagan and just say “no.”