This Is The Most Satisfying Car Brand To Drive, According To Consumer Reports' Rankings

What makes a car satisfying to drive? It may seem a complicated, subjective topic, but Consumer Reports boils it down to essentially just one question: "Based on price, performance, reliability, comfort, enjoyment, etc., if given the chance to do it again, would you buy the same vehicle?" Consumer Reports' overall satisfaction score is the percentage of people who answered "yes" to this question on CR's member surveys. (The data does provide a more detailed breakdown that we'll discuss below.)

And it sure looks like Rivian is doing an excellent job at creating repeat customers: It's the No. 1 brand in the most recent Consumer Reports ownership satisfaction ratings. It was the third straight year Rivian has claimed the spot (with BMW as the runner-up all three times), despite Rivian's history of scoring last in reliability. Which it did again this year. Rounding out the top 10 in descending order were Subaru, Tesla, Ford, Genesis, Lexus, Toyota, Honda, and Chevrolet, and — interestingly enough — Genesis and Chevrolet also joined Rivian in the bottom 10 of the CR 26-brand reliability rankings.

Keep in mind, however, that only brands with at least two models having a "statistically valid" number of survey responses were considered, which kept Alfa Romeo, Dodge, Fiat, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lucid, Maserati, Mini, Mitsubishi, Polestar, and Porsche out of the satisfaction rankings. Rivian, for its part, has seen its R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck fully tested by CR while the smaller R2 SUV has received the quick-take treatment.

CR digs a little deeper to provide rankings in the categories of comfort, driving, cabin storage, usability, and ownership costs, and Rivian supported its overall No. 1 position by leading the way in two of them: comfort and usability. The first refers to a combination of in-cabin creature comforts and the driving experience, with the second covering ease of using the controls.

So it's no surprise to learn that CR considered the cockpits of the 2026 Rivian R1S and R1T to show off "excellent attention to detail" and "a premium, high-tech look." In fact, when we checked out the uplevel 2026 Rivian R1T and R1S quad-motor models, our Collin Woodard raved about the "ridiculously nice" interior, noting, for instance, "a lot of the lower sections that would be bare plastic, even in a lot of luxury cars, are instead covered in [vegan] leather."

The usability results were a bit of a surprise, since many of Rivian's controls have to be accessed by touchscreens, which, as people are beginning to recognize, are the wrong technology for vehicle interfaces. Moreover, CR's experts gave the R1S and R1T their lowest rating for usability — the satisfaction scores, remember, are based on driver input.

For what it's worth, Rivian seems to be among the brands rethinking touchscreens and bringing back buttons. A recent patent filing shows an unnamed Rivian dashboard that lets drivers actually use not just buttons for key functions but dials and a slider, too.

Rivian was in second place in the driving category, which looks at performance and handling, but with another somewhat odd result. The top-ranked brand here is one that many owners seem to dislike operating themselves. Yep, Tesla's alleged self-driving tech didn't prevent it from outscoring Rivian. The cabin-storage leader was Ram — Rivian was No. 5 — and Tesla and Rivian were 1-2 for ownership costs, which covers things including fuel and repairs. That ownership ranking is a further surprise when you recall that Rivian was dead last for reliability.

In the end, that meant Rivian was the only brand in the top six of all five individual satisfaction categories. BMW, by comparison, placed that high only in the driving and comfort segments despite being No. 2 overall. Meanwhile, Tesla appeared in all categories save the one for comfort to finish No. 4 overall.

And that brings us to one last data point not mentioned when CR explained its satisfaction rankings — although it's one shoppers should definitely know about. It turns out that if you investigate the individual CR reviews for the Rivian R1S and R1T, the only two vehicles fully tested by Consumer Reports at this stage, you'll see their predicted values, based on whether drivers believe they got what they expected for what they paid, were only considered "fair." And the R1S was ranked sixth overall among the eight CR-tested three-row EV SUVs, while the R1T was fourth out of four all-electric pickups. Much like the range for those vehicles, you mileage will no doubt vary in terms of real-world satisfaction.