Foreign Car Makers Leave Domestic Manufacturers in the Dust

The figures are in from Consumer Reports and, perhaps not surprisingly, Japan has remained ahead of the pack in the American automotive market. Japan’s ratings stayed strong, as the small Pacific country dominated the report’s annual auto rankings last year, too.

American companies didn’t perform so well — rather, they performed quite poorly. In the annual quality rankings, America’s top brand placed 14th out of 26 brands, Bloomberg reported. Japanese manufacturers accounted for the first seven slots on the list, and accounted for eight of the top ten.

Toyota’s (NYSE:TM) Lexus brand took the number one spot for quality. The luxury brand is renowned for its smooth, quiet, and comfortable rides, and unparalleled reliability. With the introduction of its F Sport line, Lexus is also shaking its image as being the dull, muted luxury car that it has built in the past.

Consumer Reports changed its ranking system this year, breaking out brands instead of ranking automakers according to collective scores for all their lines. “We feel this is more in line with how people shop,” Rik Paul, the magazine’s automotive editor, said in an interview Tuesday, prior to the rankings being released. For example, Toyota, Lexus, and Scion models were scored separately this year instead of being calculated into a single score for Toyota.