These Car Brands Have the Most User-Friendly Tech, Owners Say

A J.D. Power study found which automakers make tech that owners love…and which companies could do better.

Published September 5, 2020

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Updated November 29, 2021

Cool new technology has always been a big part of what makes new cars desirable, but it’s taken on new prominence in the modern era. These days, vehicles come jam-packed with computers and other features enabled by them that give cars and trucks capabilities people just a decade or two ago couldn’t have dreamed of, from web-enabled touchscreens to safety systems that can recognize humans and cars and automatically jam on the brakes to prevent a crash.

So to see which of these tech features are hot and which ones are not, the team over at J.D. Power put together what they called their 2020 U.S. Tech Experience Index, or TXI, Study, to discover what owners thought of their rides’ technology based on half a dozen satisfaction attributes.. Not to give anything away, but from what they found, buyers are particularly enamored with visibility-improving features like rear view and parking cameras, were lukewarm on advanced driving assistance systems like lane keep assist, and not particularly stoked about gesture control.

One caveat to these results: Tesla would have been number two on the list, but the automaker didn’t give J.D. Power permission to contact owners in the states that require it, so the organization wasn’t able to assemble a comparable data set to the rest

We’ve assembled the 10 brands that scored the best below. The brand that scored worst in the rankings, by the way? Mini.