EV homeowners expertise extra issues with their autos than homeowners of comparable internal-combustion vehicles, based on a brand new examine, however the issue is not the powertrains.

Revealed Thursday, the J.D. Energy 2023 U.S. Tech Expertise Index (TXI) Examine focuses on the person expertise of automotive tech options, issues like infotainment programs, superior driver-assist options, and different issues in that realm. On that entrance EVs carried out worse than their gasoline and diesel counterparts.

J.D. Energy surveyed 82,472 homeowners of 2023-model-year autos within the first 90 days of possession, from February by way of Might 2023. Homeowners had been requested about 21 tech options frequent to each EV and internal-combustion fashions, and 17 of these had extra high quality issues per 100 autos for EVs (excluding Tesla, which wasn’t formally ranked) than internal-combustion autos.

Tesla Supercharger

Examples of the hole between EV and inside combustion together with distant parking help, with 27.4 issues per 100 autos for EVs and 10.7 for internal-combustion autos, and gesture controls, with 49.6 issues per 100 autos for EVs and 31.2 for internal-combustion autos. Homeowners had been additionally usually irritated by biometric options throughout the board.

Maybe not surprisingly, proprietor satisfaction throughout 86% of the options surveyed was decrease for EVs than internal-combustion fashions.

New EV-only manufacturers like Lucid and Rivian are inclined to pack their autos with extra tech options, J.D. Energy famous. Amongst manufacturers from established producers, solely Genesis matched these new manufacturers’ stage of tech innovation. Nonetheless, extra tech usually brings extra issues, the examine discovered. The exception is Polestar, which had among the many lowest reported downside ranges of any model.

2023 Polestar 2

Each Polestar and Genesis additionally carried out nicely in final yr’s TXI Examine, though the Genesis GV60 does make use of biometrics in a deeper method that, primarily based on the outcomes of this yr’s examine, homeowners might discover off-putting.

Some EV-specific tech options additionally acquired reward. Plug-and-charge functionality, which permits a automobile to robotically begin charging by plugging right into a public station, was thought-about important, with 72% of householders saying they needed it of their subsequent car. It additionally proved pretty dependable, with simply six reported issues per 100 autos. The BMW iX and Mini Cooper SE additionally acquired “vitality and sustainability” awards for his or her one-pedal driving.

2023 Genesis GV60

This newest examine as soon as once more exhibits that in EVs, the difficulty is not the powertrain, however all the opposite tech. J.D. Energy got here to an analogous conclusion in a examine printed in 2022, nevertheless it might not be the one challenge holding EV buyer satisfaction down.

A J.D. Energy survey printed earlier this yr discovered that extra individuals are rejecting EVs, however that has extra to do with value and charging availability than tech. Extra not too long ago, the agency discovered that one in 5 EV charging makes an attempt fails. So charging should be the larger challenge right here.