When Consumer Reports announced it had removed its coveted "Recommended" rating thanks to a reliability score 45% below average, it was a big deal. The outlet had previously given the Model S a better-than-perfect test score of 103 out of 100, making the reliability announcement even more surprising.

At the time, Elon Musk took to Twitter to defend his company's product.

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Consumer Reports reliability survey includes a lot of early production cars. Already addressed in new cars. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 21, 2015

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Tesla gets top rating of any company in service. Most important, CR says 97% of owners expect their next car to be a Tesla (the acid test). — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 21, 2015

Yesterday, Tesla attempted to back up those tweets, sending out an email later obtained by Electrek.

In the email, Tesla said, "In the last 12 months alone we've decreased reliability issues by half, and improvements have been made at no cost to our owners...Even if potential issues have a low likelihood of causing future problems, we fix them. It's why 97% of Tesla owners expect their next car to be a Tesla."

But as HybridCars.com points out, Consumer Reports separated its survey data by years, allowing it to keep track of ongoing issues as well as any significant changes in reliability. Areas where the 2015 Model S did worse than the 2014 included climate control, steering, and suspension systems.

We'll have to wait until next year to see whether the improvements Tesla has made will be enough to change Consumer Reports' recommendation.

via AutoGuide

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