Tesla loses rating in Consumer Reports reliability survey

Tesla Inc’s luxury car Model S sedan lost its “recommended” rating and the automaker slid overall by six spots to almost the bottom in Consumer Reports magazine’s yearly reliability survey.

All domestic automaker landed in the bottom half of the magazine’s new-car reliability ratings, which consist data collected for over 500,000 vehicles. The survey, which ranked 29 brands in the U.S. market, was revealed on Wednesday.

“It’s the complexities that have really dragged down Tesla,” stated Jake Fisher, the magazine’s director of auto testing. “Most of the problems that we’re seeing with Tesla truly are mechanical issues.”

The Model S seems similar to the model released six years ago, but Tesla has made major mechanical and software changes over the last few years, including making air suspension and all-wheel-drive standard, he stated. That can harm reliability as more complexity is added.

Tesla stated it had streamlined and simplified Model S configurations, not made the model more complex. It also stated the concerns cited by owners in the Consumer Reports survey had been addressed before by the automaker, including with over-the-air software updates.