Actually, the magazine has been called Consumer Reports for decades. Consumers Union officially changed its name to Consumer Reports in 2012 because that’s what everyone recognized and knew them as anyway. Since the only thing people saw was the name on the magazine, I’m sure not many noticed.
As others have said above, they send a survey to all of their subscribers that is volunatarily returned. The raw numbers and statistics are applied uniformly, so any claim of bias in the statistical portion of their reports is simply being defensive. They do write reviews that are subjective, but those are a different matter.
As far as the validity goes, like any survey it is limited by the sampled population (CR subscribers) and sample size. If they get 50,000 surveys back and only 3 people have Model Ys then it’s hard to draw firm conclusions.
If you actually look at the full reliability report, they do separate out the different components, you just need to look past the top line. Specifically, they said the climate system, paint & trim, body integrity, and body hardware were much worse than average. Power equipment was worse than average. Virtually everything else was much better than average. The problem is, a new car should have no problems, so those areas are more than enough to sink the final rating. Also, if you look at the final ratings, I don’t think anyone would disagree with the problem areas. They’re all well described and well known. They’re also not terribly surprising for a relatively new car maker with a brand new model. The good news is, they seem to be improving.
Most of the trashing on this thread seems to be more about people who like their cars getting defensive about someone saying they have problems.