EV advocates will all you that one of the secondary benefits of driving an electric car is that they have fewer moving parts so should be more reliable and require fewer trips to your local dealer’s service department. But J.D. Power’s Customer Service Index (CSI) study has registered its first decline in satisfaction in 28 years and it’s placing the blame squarely on EVs.
J.D.’s analysis of 64,248 drivers found that service satisfaction was on average 42 points lower for drivers of electric cars, trucks and SUVs versus owners of combustion-engined vehicles, largely due to recall rate being double for EVs. Respondents also reported that service advisors at dealerships weren’t as knowledgeable about electric cars as they were the ICE vehicles they’ve been used to dealing with.
“The industry has been hyper-focused on launches and now these customers are bringing their electric vehicles in for maintenance and repairs,” explained Chris Sutton, vice president of automotive retail at J.D. Power. “The EV segment has the potential to spur massive convenience improvements in how customers service their vehicles—but we’re not seeing the benefits yet.”
Drivers also reported having to wait longer for a service appointment, the average wait for mass market and premium vehicles having increased from 1.3 days and 1.9 days in 2021 to 4.8 days and 5.6 days in the 2023 study. On the plus side, dealers are finally acknowledging that many owners prefer to be contacted via text rather than phone.
Related: The Most Dependable Brands And Models In J.D. Power’s 2023 VDS Study
How did your favorite carmaker rank? You can check out the tables for premium and mass market companies above, but the headline news for brands is that Lexus topped the overall league list for the second year running with a score of 900, and also relegated Porsche (880), Cadillac (879) and Infiniti (878) to second, third and fourth respectively in the premium table. Interestingly, Genesis ranked bottom with 819 points, below Jaguar, Lincoln and Land Rover, but Alfa Romeo, which came bottom last year, rated mid-table and only just below average, suggesting that the kick up the butt Alfa dealers got last year is working. Over in the mass-market corner Mitsubishi came top thanks to its 884 score, followed by Mazda on 870 and third-placed Buick on 867.
J.D.’s CSI study is in its 43rd year, but what makes the 2023 report stand out is that the results have been broken out into vehicle segment for the first time. The expanded data shows Subaru tops the mass-market cars table, Mitsubishi has the mass-market SUV/minivan bracket covered, Lexus dominates both the premium car and SUV segments and Nissan owners are happier with their service than drivers of any other brand of truck.
