Genesis Wins Race for Most Dependable Car Brand

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Feb 12, 10:58AM EST · Published Feb 12, 8:05AM EST

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J.D. Power studies about consumer car preferences are the industry’s gold standard. The research firm has released its 2020 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study. Small South Korean luxury brand Genesis tops the list.

The Genesis brand, which received the top score, was part of the Hyundai line of cars. The parent, Hyundai Motor Group, decided to spin it out as its own division. The plan follows similar moves years ago when Toyota spun out Lexus and Nissan did the same with Infiniti. The Hyundai decision about Genesis was made in 2015. Hyundai also controls the downscale Kia brand.

Genesis only has four vehicles in its lineup: the compact G70, the G80 sports sedan, the high-end flagship G90 and the new GV80 SUV. The brand competes with much larger BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Lexus. Its model line is also up against Ford’s Lincoln and the Cadillac line from General Motors.

The survey measures problems per hundred vehicles for cars that are three years old and driven by their original owners. So the 2020 results cover 2017 vehicles. Survey questions cover 177 potential problems grouped into eight major categories. The lowest score per 100 vehicles is the best score available. The overall score for the industry rose by 1.5 from the previous year to 134.

Genesis had a score of 90 problems per hundred vehicles. The industry average measured the score of 32 brands. The brands just behind Genesis were Lexus at 100 and Porsche at 104. Several luxury brands did very poorly. Mercedes-Benz ranked 22nd with a score of 152. Infiniti ranked 24th with a score of 155.

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The two luxury brands owned by India’s Tata Motors were at the bottom of the list. Land Rover ranked 32nd with a score of 220. Jaguar was 30th with a score of 186. These British car brands have been part of Tata since 2008. They have struggled with losses and falling sales. There have been rumors Tata would like to sell them.

It is unusual that a new brand like Genesis should edge out luxury brands that have been around for decades. But Hyundai has developed a brand that is, for the time being, short on sales but long on quality.

Methodology: The 2020 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study is based on responses from 36,555 original owners of 2017 model-year vehicles after three years of ownership. The study was fielded from July through November 2019.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.