Chris Woodyard

USA TODAY

Tesla is driving home with a "perceived quality" award for its Model S electric sedan.

Strategic Vision, a research outfit in southern California, has named the Tesla Model S as having the highest score among any vehicle in its latest Total Quality Index.

"Tesla built a vehicle that generated love in attributes that were most important to segment buyers," says Christopher Chaney, a Strategic Vision senior vice president, in a statement. "Tesla isn't an electric vehicle that just has good features, but instead it's a luxurious sports sedan that has true innovation, rocket-like speed and drive feeling, that happens to be an electric vehicle."

He says other automakers need to re-examine whether electrifying their vehicles will "implement a mantra of building super-cool transportation that impresses the heck out of customers."

Strategic Vision says its study involves 38,361 owners who rank what they perceive as the best vehicles in every category. In addition to the categories, the brand named top overall brands. They are Kia among mainstream brands and a virtual tie between Audi and Jaguar among luxury makers.

Here are the results: