Vehicle owners in the United States appear to be unimpressed with the design and performance of new vehicles, according to a recent J.D. Power report released in July.
Its U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study highlights for the first time in the report’s 28-year history a consecutive year-over-year decline in owner satisfaction — which is at 845 points on a 1,000-point scale. That is down two points from 2022 and three points from 2021.
“The decline in consecutive years might look small, but it’s an indicator that larger issues may lie under the surface,” said Frank Hanley, Senior Director of Auto Benchmarking at J.D. Power, in a statement. “Despite the technology and design innovations that manufacturers put into new vehicles, owners are lukewarm about them.”
According to Hanley, while things like charging pads, vehicle apps, and advanced audio features should improve the consumer’s experience, the moment they experience problems — the owner’s experience begins to sour. “This downward trajectory of satisfaction should be a warning sign to manufacturers that they need to better understand what owners really want in their new vehicles,” he said.
The study considers 10 factors and nine of them declined year-over-year. The factor that did improve is fuel economy, which came in at 771 points this year — 15 higher than in 2022. The factor with the most significant year-over-year decline is exterior; this dropped to 888 from 894 points. And J.D. Power said satisfaction with exterior styling for new models in 2023 is “particularly unremarkable,” having scored a mere three points above carryover models.
“Built-in infotainment systems are a prime example of a technology not resonating with today’s buyers. Only 56 per cent of owners prefer to use their vehicle’s built-in system to play audio, down from 70 per cent in 2020,” said the company in its news release.
As for the OEM ranking, Jaguar takes the lead among premium brands (887), followed by Land Rover (883) and Porsche (883), ranking second in a tie, and BMW (878) taking fourth place. For the mass market, Dodge ranks highest for the fourth consecutive year (887), followed by Ram (873) in second and GMC (858) in third.
