Best and Worst Car Brands of 2024 According to J.D. Power

J.D. Power Annual Quality Survey
Rankings for 2024 have been released
Which brand has the worst quality?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could quantify the quality of all new vehicles? Consumers who bought a new car thinking, “It’ll be okay…” only to encounter defects have likely wished for such a measure at least once.

Although it is difficult to view it as an absolute value, there is a company that evaluates the quality of new vehicles with some objectivity. That’s an American market research company, J.D. Power. The company annually announces quantified quality scores and rankings based on the frequency of defects by vehicle brand, and the results of the 2024 survey were recently released and are attracting attention.

1st place is the pickup truck brand Ram
What rank was Hyundai?

J.D. Power announced the results of its annual Initial Quality Study (IQS) on June 27. IQS is considered the automobile purchasing standard for American consumers and a key indicator determining each company’s quality ranking. It is conducted by counting quality complaints that occurred over the three months following the launch of a new vehicle and converting them into the number of complaints per 100 vehicles.

This year’s survey was conducted on 99,144 people, including consumers who purchased a new 2024 model car and executives and employees of the relevant organizations. The brand that ranked first this year was RAM, with 149 points. Porsche, an imported vehicle brand, was first placed in the premium brand category with 172 points. What is noteworthy is that Hyundai ranked third out of 34 brands with 162 points, following second-place Chevrolet (160 points).

Significant features stand out
The lowest-ranked brand is an electric vehicle

A notable feature of this survey is that American brands such as Ram, Chevrolet, and Ford beat Japanese brands such as Toyota and Lexus, which had been at the top for a long time. Another unique feature is that the gap between top brands is not significant. Excluding Ram, which ranked first by an overwhelming margin, the score difference between five brands, including Chevrolet and Nissan, is only 6 points.

What brands were ranked at the bottom of the IQS index? First, there were electric vehicle brands. Rivian and Tesla each scored 266 points. Last among the brands that produce internal combustion engine vehicles is Dodge (301 points). It is ironic considering that Ram, which took first place, was once a brand under Dodge.

Polestar Ranks Last for the Second Year in a Row
Why the Low Score?

The brand that ranked last among electric vehicles and internal combustion engines was Polestar, one of the imported car brands, with an IQS index of 316 points. This means that there were more than three complaints per vehicle with Dodge. Polestar also received 313 points in 2023, ranking last with an overwhelming gap from Tesla (257 points), which ranked just above it.

J.D. Power cites the abuse of advanced technology to differentiate electric vehicles from internal combustion vehicles as the reason for the low IQS index of electric vehicle brands. Even though the mechanical structure is more straightforward than that of an internal combustion engine vehicle, the proportion of defects has increased due to software defects. The most common complaints were regarding smartphone connectivity, driving assistance systems, and smartphone app integration. Although IQS is not an absolute indicator for new vehicle purchases, consumers will have no choice but to be wary of the lowest-ranked brands.