The perceived difference between top-of-the-line car brands is diminishing. The Consumer Reports National Research Center has recently conducted a survey of the 2012 Car-Brand Perception. Toyota, Ford, Honda, Chevy and Mercedes-Benz maintained their stay as perennial leaders of the past and present, but watched their point gap decrease. The small electric-car builder has seen a rise with recent dramatic events like gas price increases and the economic downturn.
The Top 5 Car Brands by Perception are led by Toyota, Ford, Honda, Chevy and Mercedes-Benz, with BMW, Volvo, Cadillac, Lexus and Tesla rounding out the top ten. The survey asked the consumer how important each factor was to the respondent making a car purchase. Safety was the top consideration, followed by quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design and style, and technology and innovation.
Consumers are recognizing the forecast of more electric cars to the market, with Fisker and Tesla making a showing in the latest survey. Small producers that were added to the 2012 survey are scoring better than many well-established brands. Awareness is still relatively low on many of these electric car brands compared to the more established companies, but respondents familiar with Fisker and Tesla held them in high regard in certain categories.
Car-brand leaders do not stand out from the rest of the pack the way they have in the past, and individual factors show the perceptions leading to significant changes. Category scores reflect the number of times that the particular make was mentioned as a standard of the particular attribute in all seven categories.
Consumer Reports National Research Center conducted a random, nationwide telephone survey of 2,045 adults from Dec. 1-5, 2011, and collected survey data from 1,702 adults in households that had at least one car.
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