Widewail, a customer review and reputation management solution, has released the 2024 Widewail Brand Scorecard, a study of the reputations and sentiments of 32 auto manufacturers across the United States. Lexus earned the highest reputation ranking among all automotive brands. Toyota and BMW ranked second and third, respectively.

The study analyzed 4 million Google customer reviews across 14 luxury and 18 non-luxury automotive brands. Over 1 million reviews were used for topic analysis. The Brand Scorecard ranks automotive brands using Widewail’s proprietary reputation “health score,” a diverse methodology that reveals the full picture of any brand or dealer’s reputation and assigns a 0-100 rating. The factors incorporated within the report include regional performance, detailed brand sentiment performance across 27 topics, reputation performance, best-selling model performance, and top-rated dealers.

“There’s more competition than ever across the automotive retail industry, and reputation is a powerful differentiator that can meaningfully impact search ranking and sway customer decision-making in the car buying process,” said Matt Murray, CEO of Widewail. “Our 2024 Brand Scorecard is designed to provide automotive brands with a clear picture of what their customers say, how they stack up against their competition, and what factors drive their reputations. Lexus earned the top spot for reputation thanks to its high monthly review volume, an exceptionally high rate of response to reviews, and a very low percentage of negative reviews.”

For the calendar year 2023, Lexus, whose health score is 95/100, received a median monthly review volume of 21.2. Lexus’s median lifetime Google rating is 4.7/5. The company responded to 98% of its reviews, and only 8% of the total reviews left by Lexus customers were negative. Interestingly, Lexus and Toyota had the same median review volume, but Lexus edged out Toyota thanks to slightly higher ratings and a 4% higher response rate.

The median monthly review volume benchmark across all automotive brands in calendar year 2023 is 10.4.