I like CR. But I have always thought that their auto reviews are more like appliance reviews than car reviews. That's fine. But there is more to a car, at least for Americans, than whether it can wash a load of dishes in the most effective and economical way. Or, as it relates to a car; get you there in the most cost efficient manner. There is a lot of emotion involved in buying a car. I don't think they take that into account. I think we are much more tolerant about a car being less efficient or less perfect score-wise than we are with tools, appliances, etc. We don't buy Mustangs for efficiency. We buy them to have fun on the road and to be totally cool.
However, that being said, I value the work they do and have always taken their information into account when buying a car. They are an invaluable resource because of their meticulous standards and independence from every product they test.
Car buyers aren't all the same. Car enthusiasts are usually willing to put up with some flaws if the car has what they want, which is usually a certain look and/or certain performance criteria. The bulk of the car buying public just aren't that into cars. A car boils down to a means to get from point A to point B and the looks are down the list. Many people want enough performance they can merge onto the freeway safely, but they aren't interested in anything approaching sports car capabilities. For the bulk of the public reliability is one of the most important factors in a car.
To some degree you get the same sort of thing with computers. For most people it's a way to do what they want to do, for others it's part of their lifestyle. I have a friend who needs to have the latest gadgets from Apple, no matter what they are. Both of us need computers for our work, but I'm much more utilitarian. I have high performance computers, but only because I'm developing software. One computer I use quite a bit was originally built in 2001, though I've changed out parts over the years.
Few people get terribly passionate about their refrigerator or washing machine. they may like certain features, but they don't upgrade yearly to get the latest technology or follow forums for their appliances to learn what next year's Maytags are going to be.
Consumer Reports takes an even handed approach to all these things. For car enthusiasts, the reporting is probably a bit thin on what they are looking for, but for other things it's probably just what they are looking for. All reporting has some bias and CR is no exception, but their approach factors out bias more than just about anybody else. They don't have to worry about angering their advertisers because they don't have any.
For what it's worth, I've never been a car guy at all. I've never owned a "cool" car. For the last 24 years I've been driving a Buick I bought new. It met all my criteria at the time and still meets my needs quite well but I'm getting to a point where I'm going to have to make a number of road trips a year to California and I'm a bit wary of taking a 24 year old car on long trips. My SO's car is too small for long trips, which I learned last year when we had to go down to CA in February. I started car shopping shortly after we got back.
I didn't think my criteria would be all that tough to fit, but in the end, only one car did fit:
1) I had to be able to get the seat back far enough for long trips. I have extremely long legs and I broke my tailbone as a kid, if I can't get my thighs horizontal or a little downward I end up in pain after about 2 hours. My SO's car is just a little too small.
2) I want a car, not an SUV - many SUVs have the legroom, but they don't meet my other criteria.
3) I want a car that can get at least a bit better gas mileage than my Buick - I thought this would be easy, but it wasn't. My current car gets 18/25 which I was shocked to learn many new cars a bit smaller than my Buick can't do, or are just marginally better.
4) I want close to if not more cargo space than my current car which is 20 cf - Most larger hybrids have better gas mileage, but no cargo space. The Fusion PHEV has only 8 cf in the trunk!
5) I want a car with at least the same acceleration as my car - My car is only 8s 0-60, which isn't exactly a sports car, but any cars with the gas mileage I was looking for that were big enough had horrible 0-60 times. I don't want to get lunched by a semi because my car takes too long to merge.
6) I also wanted collision avoidance - Subaru's was looking nice, but autopilot is even better.
The Model S is the only car that met all these criteria. It blows some of them away like the equivalent mileage, the cargo space, and acceleration but it's the only car I looked at that ticked every box. I was concerned about the range but the supercharger network should be good enough. Having to charge 2-3 times to get to the Bay Area is going to add time to a long trip, especially when we are doing the drive in one day, but I figure with autopilot it will be less fatiguing and I can probably nap at superchargers which will help keep me alert on the one day drives.
I actually find it kind of funny that I've had my Buick for so long I missed CDs in cars. My Buick has a cassette deck and the Model S only takes USB as plug in media. My Buick was built a few years before USB even existed.
I am an engineer and the engineering feat that is the Model S/X is truly amazing. If something else had fit my criteria, I'd probably be driving it by now and would have never looked at Tesla. The Model S costs 5X more than the car I'm driving now and is 2.5 times more than my original target price. I got upsold big time, but again the amazing engineering makes every other car look like an antique. My interest is from an engineering perspective than a car thing though. I don't give a flying leap what others think about my car (and I have taken a lot of guff over the years for my Buick) and I never really cared all that much about cars beyond a general interest in how machines worked. The whole car fascination thing passed me by. I was fascinated with aircraft from an early age though, I started building models of them when I was 3. But that's a different story.
