The basis of their research was the same survey of 13,000 British motorists about the frequency of breakdowns of their "iron horses", the cost of repairs, and the time to fix faults. The final statistics were collected for 171 models of 31 brands.
In the table below, petrol, diesel, electric, and hybrid cars are arranged in descending order: the lower a particular type of car is, the less reliable it is. The rating itself is divided into three categories: cars up to 5 years old, from 6 to 20 years old, and from 1 to 20 years old. Each group shows the percentage of breakdown frequency.
Car type/ 2016-2020/ 2015-2000/ 2000-2020
- Diesel/ 24.7%/ 27.4%/ 25.8%
- Electric/ 20.2%/ 15.4%/ 19.9%
- Petrol/ 16.7%/ 24.0%/ 18.9%
- Hybrid/ 13.9%/ 14.0%/ 13.9%
Conclusion? As you can see, the least reliable cars are diesel ones – about a quarter of them break down. This applies to both new and old cars. And the least prone to breakdowns are hybrids – less than 15% of owners of such cars have encountered failures. They consistently show their reliability in all age groups.
But when it comes to repair costs, the picture is somewhat different: 4% of electric car owners said they had to pay £1,000 or more (almost 38,000 UAH) to fix a fault. Among diesel and hybrid car owners, only 2% of respondents faced such a bill, and among petrol owners – only 1%.
At the same time, in terms of warranty service, hybrids are again in the lead: hybrids are first in free breakdown repairs (91% of cases), followed by petrol and electric cars (90% each), and in last place are diesels (85%).
