So much for revolutionizing the industry.
For years we’ve been told how owning an electric car is so much more stress-free than dealing with some “dinosaur” that runs on gas or diesel. However, the results of J.D. Power’s 2023 U.S. Customer Service Index indicates EV owners are quite a bit more dissatisfied than people who drive ICE vehicles.
Learn why some electric cars rust quickly here.
For the first time in 28 years of the study being run, service satisfaction overall fell, coming in at 846 out of 1,000 possible versus 848 last year. What pulled the average down was EV owners who came in at a full 42 points lower than their ICE counterparts.
What’s shocking about this result (no pun intended) is that EV fanboys have been pushing how Teslas, etc. don’t require all that nasty maintenance like oil changes, etc. The only problem is J.D. Power found the recall rate for EVs is about twice that of ICE vehicles.
Another thing dragging down customer service satisfaction for EV owners is a perceived lack of knowledge of service advisers. For years, we’ve also been hearing from electric car advocates that too many dealership employees know too little about EVs, so that’s still a complaint.
For the entire industry, shortages are a problem, both of parts and labor. Government policies put in place during the pandemic, along with other factors, helped fuel this situation. Now, J.D. Power found wait times for vehicles being serviced has increased to 4.8 days on average for mass-market cars or 5.6 days for premium brands. Before, wait times were on average 1.3 and 1.9 days, respectively, so that’s a huge shift in the wrong direction.
Unsurprisingly, Lexus was tops for luxury brands in the index. More shocking was Mitsubishi landing at number one for mass-market makes. With Nissan having gained equal footing in its arrangement with Renault, big things could be coming for it and Mitsubishi in the coming years.
Read more about the study here.
Images via Tesla, Lexus
