Germany's BMW leaped 10 places to take the No. It helps that most hybrids are sold by Toyota and its Lexus luxury brand, the top two brands in Consumer Reports' rankings, released Tuesday at a meeting of the Automotive Press Association in Detroit. Plug-in hybrids, which can go a relatively short distance on battery power before switching to both gas and electricity, don't have the same level of reliability as hybrids, Fisher said. Reliabilty was extremely or very important to 94% of prospective auto buyers, the survey found, and 80% said the same about fuel economy, Consumer Reports said. “A hybrid can provide years of trouble-free miles, and they are a good defense against rising fuel prices,” Fisher said. With high gas prices and skyrocketing new vehicle costs, people are keeping their vehicles longer, so reliability and fuel economy are becoming more important to buyers, the group's annual survey found. “They're catering to practical buyers who are looking for reliable, efficient, safe vehicles, not the latest technology.” “Hybrids are very conventionally built vehicles,” Fisher said.
Hybrid technology has been around for more than two decades, and even though the vehicles switch between electric and gasoline power, they don't have a lot of the technology or complex multi-speed transmissions that have caused problems with other vehicles, said Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing.
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