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KBB 2013 Brand Image Awards has some obvious and oddball winners

The sixth edition of the Kelley Blue Book Brand Image Awards have crowned a wide range of winners - in a couple of cases the recipient of the laurels might say more about KBB users than they do about the actual winner. Compiled from the responses of more than 12,000 shoppers on KBB.com over the past year, there are 13 categories broken into non-luxury, luxury and truck segments "representing the combined wisdom of the American car-buying public."
The award categories have been revamped this year, with some dropping off, some new ones appearing and at least one other given a new term. What isn't surprising is that Honda won Most Trusted Brand for the second year running, Best Value Brand for the third year in a row and took Best Overall Brand, which wasn't on last year's list of awards.
On our own shores, in the non-luxury categories Chrysler got Most Refined Brand and Buick took Best Value Luxury Brand. Neither one of those marques won anything in last year's Brand Image Awards, while Cadillac, which won Best Interior Design Brand and Best Comfort Brand last year - those awards disappeared this year - went home without a single accolade.

GM applies to trademark Buick's Electra name in Canada

At Auto China 2020 in Beijing, Buick revealed an Electra concept with a design language called Potential Energy created by one of GM's Shanghai-based design studios. A press release about the concept said the "all-electric crossover offers a sneak peek at Buick’s vision for a new intelligent electric future." It's possible that the "intelligent electric future" could include the Electra name, as the Rivian Owners Forum discovered Buick applied to trademark that model name in Canada on December 20. Buick isn't new to the name, having put it on a luxury sedan it produced from 1959 to 1990. What better way to resurrect history with electricity using the name Electra and a design language called Potential Energy? As the Rivian forum also noted, Buick snuck a concept car into General Motors' promotional video for the Ultifi software platform that will connect owners' digital lives across vehicles and locations. For less than two seconds at the end of the vid, a seriously chic fastback sedan speeds through a digital landscape, a Buick tri-shield logo set into what looks like an active rear spoiler. We don't see Buick building this car, but we'd love it if Buick did. What we imagine more likely is a more production-possible evolution of the Electra concept shown in Beijing last year that had Ultium batteries powering two electric motors that shared a combined 583 horsepower among both axles. The sprint to 60 miles per hour was said to take 4.3 seconds, range estimated at about 410 miles. The dihedral doors enclosed a buttonless cockpit with a rectangular, retracting steering wheel, huge curved screen, eConnect software, and an AI-powered assistant for feature control. There was also a skateboard tucked into the rear bumper for last-mile travel to the destination or the half-pipe. We expect Buick to launch at least one crossover in 2024, and another in 2025. One of them will likely compete with the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the production version of the Chrysler Airflow concept. Related video:

Lexus tops JD Power Vehicle Dependability Study again, Buick bests Toyota

It shouldn't surprise anyone, but Lexus has once again taken the top spot in JD Power's Vehicle Dependability Study. That'd be the Japanese luxury brand's fourth straight year at the top of table. The big news, though, is the rise of Buick. General Motor's near-premium brand beat out Toyota to take second place, with 110 problems per 100 vehicles compared to Toyota's 111 problems. Lexus owners only reported 89 problems per 100 vehicles. Besides Buick's three-position jump, Scion enjoyed a major improvement, jumping 13 positions from 2014. Ram and Mitsubishi made big gains, as well, moving up 11 and 10 positions, respectively. In terms of individual segments, GM and Toyota both excelled, taking home seven segment awards each. The study wasn't good news for all involved, though. A number of popular automakers finished below the industry average of 147 problems per 100 vehicles, including Subaru, (157PP100), Volkswagen (165PP100), Ford/Hyundai (188PP100 each) and Mini (193PP100). The biggest losers (by a tremendous margin, we might add) were Land Rover and Fiat, recording 258 and 273 problems per 100 vehicles. The next closest brand was Jeep, with 197PP100. While the Vehicle Dependability Study uses the same measurement system as the Initial Quality Survey, the two metrics analyze very different things. The VDS looks at problems experienced by original owners of model year 2012 vehicles over the past 12 months, while the oft-quoted IQS focuses on problems in the first 90 days of new-vehicle ownership. Like the IQS, though, the VDS has a rather broad definition of what a problem is. Because of that, a low score from JD Power is no guarantee of extreme unreliability, so much as just poor design. In this most recent study, the two most reported problems focused on Bluetooth connectivity and the voice-command systems. The former leaves plenty of room for user error due to poor design (particularly true of the Bluetooth systems on the low-scoring Fords, Volkswagens and Subarus), while the second is something JD Power has already confirmed as being universally terrible. That makes means that while these studies are important, they shouldn't be taken as gospel when it comes to automotive reliability. News Source: JD PowerImage Credit: Copyright 2015 Jeremy Korzeniewski / AOL Buick Fiat Ford GM Hyundai Jeep Land Rover Lexus MINI Mitsubishi RAM Scion Subaru Toyota Volkswagen Auto Repair Ownership study