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Audi tops Consumer Reports' brand rankings while Tesla leads domestics at eighth

Tesla supplanted General Motors' Buick division as the top-ranked US automaker in Consumer Reports annual brand rankings, though the electric-vehicle maker finished eighth among global automakers. Buick had finished atop CR's domestic car-brand list for three years before Tesla leapfrogged it. Scores were calculated from a combination of performance, owner satisfaction, and reliability. CR noted that Buick scored big on reliability but not so high on performance, while Tesla appeared to present the opposite case. Volkswagen's Audi division repeated as the best overall brand for the second straight year, beating out VW's Porsche unit, BMW, Toyota's Lexus division, and Subaru. Kia and Mazda followed those brands, while Honda finished ninth, between Tesla and Buick. Consumer Reports took results from 31 brands. Reliability issues related to the Toyota Tacoma helped drop that Japanese automaker out of the top 10. Take a look at CR's results for its Annual Brand Report Card here. That Tesla, Audi, and Porsche placed so high is topical, given some of the issues plaguing those automakers. Audi, Porsche, and their parent VW have been coping with the effects of the diesel-emissions scandal that broke back in 2015. The scandal has cost Europe's largest automaker billions of dollars, and forced VW to put a stop-sale on diesel-powered cars in the US in late 2015. And while the Tesla Model S improved from the "worse-than-average" label CR gave it in its 2015 Annual Auto Reliability Survey, the problematic falcon-wing doors on the Tesla Model X SUV pulled that model's reliability scores lower last year. Additionally, the Model X's climate-control system and door locks have also caused issues. Toyota and Lexus finished atop CR's reliability rankings last year. Related Video:

Tesla poaches Renault-Nissan communications boss Sproule

Need another sign that Tesla is growing into a force to be reckoned with? Bloomberg reports it has just snagged high-profile communications boss Simon Sproule from Renault-Nissan to become the EV maker's vice president of communications and marketing.
Sproule is an industry veteran, having spent 20 years at Nissan (where he grew to become CEO Carlos Ghosn's right-hand man). In addition, he logged stints at Ford, Jaguar (when it was still a Blue Oval-owned brand) and Microsoft. Despite all that experience, Sproule is still young, at just 45 years of age, as Bloomberg points out, yet he's held positions in the US, Japan and France over the years.
This is all good news for Tesla, which is in need of a strong spokesman outside of company CEO Elon Musk. It's been battling with the state of New Jersey and its governor, Chris Christie, over direct sales in the Garden State.

Recharge Wrap-up: Musk sees solar future, Uber sued for tips

Elon Musk and his cousin, Lyndon Rive, spoke about their ideas for solar power and energy storage at a private conference in New York. Musk, the Tesla CEO and Rive, CEO of SolarCity, said that within 10 years, every solar system SolarCity sells will come with battery storage, and that it will be cheaper than getting energy from a utility company. Tesla, which provides battery packs for SolarCity, will set aside a portion of its Gigafactory's production capacity for grid-scale energy storage. Rive says his company will be able to produce the most efficient solar panels available, while Tesla has plans for in-home energy storage that not only saves power for nighttime and cloudy days, but also looks good. Read more at The Wall Street Journal and head over to Treehugger for more commentary. Proper deployment of bike lanes could help improve the flow of traffic while making cycling safer in urban settings. In New York City, adding bike lanes improved automotive traffic according to a study. What seems to work well is putting the bike lane closest to the curb on the left side of a one-way street, with a small buffer zone and a parking lane separating it from car traffic. The addition of turning lanes, with their own traffic signals for vehicles turning left, also allows car and bike traffic to continue smoothly. Read more at Core77. Uber is facing a lawsuit over its included gratuity. The ride-hailing app charges a 20 percent tip, included in the price of the ride. The Illinois plaintiff claims, however, that Uber keeps "a substantial portion" of that gratuity for itself, rather than paying it out to the driver. The lawsuit, which is seeking group status, looks to make Uber give up any of the gratuity funds it has kept. The plaintiff is also seeking an unspecified amount of cash in damages. Read more at Bloomberg. A new study breaks down the demographics of the users of public transit. The study, called "Who's On Board 2014," Finds that ridership is mostly inverse from income, with people making over $150,000 per year bucking the trend by riding as much as those in lower brackets. Regardless of region, younger people are more likely to use public transportation, while older people prefer to drive more. African Americans are more likely to ride, with 39 percent using public transit once a week, and 22 percent commuting by transit. Whites use public transit less, with only 10 percent riding once a week, and just five percent using public transit to commute.