J.D. Power’s 2022 Initial Quality Study Shows Sharp Decline
This year’s Initial Quality study carried out by J.D. Power represents the 36th year the organization has conducted the exercise of measuring initial quality of new vehicles based on the number of problems reported by vehicle owners. And for a variety of reasons, 2022’s study shows the worst results in the survey’s history.
The average number of problems per 100 vehicles increased by 11 percent this year, to 180. Last year’s average was 162. Looking more closely, electric vehicles generated nearly 40 percent more complaints per 100 vehicles than gasoline-powered ones.
J.D. Power points to several factors that explain the drop in initial quality, notably the ongoing effects of the pandemic, chronic supply-chain problems, higher vehicle prices and personnel movement and perturbations. It’s important to note that the survey looks only at how people feel (or, what they like and don’t like) about their brand-new vehicle, and says nothing about longer-term reliability or owner satisfaction.
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A certain drop in owners’ satisfaction with their new vehicle was to be expected given the obstacles industry players have had to hurdle over during the past year or two. Wrote J.D. Power’s director of global automotive, David Amodeo:
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