I agree with you in principle but I think if you're Consumer Reports and you know much of your audience is very nontechnical (ie, will only have a very surface-

I agree with you in principle but I think if you're Consumer Reports and you know much of your audience is very nontechnical (ie, will only have a very surface-level understanding of electric vs hybrid vs ICE) it makes some sense to attempt to distill an entire brand down to a single datapoint. Many readers aren't savvy and just want to know what dealership to show up at to start asking what they can afford. If brand XYZ has amazing ICE reliability but their EVs are trash, you suddenly need to be a more informed consumer when you get to that dealership. Easier to just rank the companies with a long history of reliability across multiple product segments higher.