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DETROIT (AP) — The reliability of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids has dramatically improved, narrowing a wide gap with gas-powered automobiles, according to the latest survey by Consumer Reports. But vehicles with internal combustion engines and gas-electric hybrids are still far more dependable, the survey found. Consumer Reports subscribers, who filled out surveys during much of 2024, reported that electric vehicles had 42% more problems than gas autos on average. But that was down from 79% more in the 2023 survey. The survey released Thursday measured reliability of vehicles mainly from the 2022, 2023 and 2024 model years. Plug-ins, which travel a short distance on battery power before a hybrid powertrain kicks in, had 70% more problems than gas vehicles, but that was less than half the difference found in last year’s survey. The reason for the improvement? EV and plug-in technology are maturing, said Jake Fisher, head of Consumer Reports’ automobile test center. “As the automakers get more experience with the new technologies and new platforms, they will improve,” Fisher said. He said he expects plug-in and electric vehicles to keep getting better, further closing the gap with gas vehicles. But one thing may stand in the way: Automakers often test new automation and other features on EVs, and the new stuff is prone to glitches. “Until we get to where an EV is just a car that does practical things with their own powertrain, I’m not sure they’ll ever catch up totally” to gas vehicles, Fisher said. The new technology may offer more than the next wave of EV buyers would like, as EVs move from early adopters to more practical mainstream buyers, Fisher said. “There are people who just want a car that’s easy to maintain,” he said. “I don’t use gas. I don’t need this automation feature and electric door handles or whatever the heck they are putting out.” Consumer Reports has noted that concerns about EV and plug-in quality add to issues that may have buyers hesitating before switching from gasoline engines, including concerns about higher up-front costs, too few charging stations and long charging times. Gas-electric hybrids, which switch from internal combustion to electric power to get better mileage, were about as reliable as cars with combustion engines. While the technology is pretty technical, it has been refined for a quarter century, mainly by pioneer Toyota, Fisher said. “CR’s tests have shown that they are often quieter, quicker and more pleasant to drive than their gasoline-only counterparts,” he said. Through September of this year, the last month for which all automakers have reported results, electric vehicle sales are up 7.2%, plug-in sales rose 11.6%, but hybrids led with a 32.6% increase, according to Motorintelligence.com. Consumer Reports said its 2024 survey of subscribers representing about 300,000 vehicle owners found that Subaru was the most reliable brand for the first time, followed by perennial top finishers Lexus and Toyota. Rounding out the top five were Honda and its Acura luxury brand. It was the first time since 2020 that neither Toyota nor its Lexus luxury brand were in the top spot, Fisher said. The highest-ranked brand from a U.S.-based automaker was General Motors’ Buick at No. 11. The five lowest of 22 brands that were ranked were electric upstart Rivian, followed by GM’s Cadillac luxury brand, GMC, Jeep and Volkswagen, Consumer Reports said. The magazine and website didn’t get enough data this year to rank Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Lucid, Maserati, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Porsche and Ram. Electric vehicle sales leader Tesla finished 17th, down three spots from last year’s survey. Subaru took first place in the survey by following the same formula that Toyota uses to get high reliability scores: It doesn’t make huge changes when updating or unveiling new vehicles, Fisher said. Instead of going with new engines or transmissions, Subaru carries parts over from the prior generation. “They don’t fix what’s not broken,” he said. “They continue to refine their products, and because the products perform quite well, they don’t have to have big changes.” Rivian, Fisher said, is a new company with new electric models that have more glitches. Since the company is a startup, it can’t use proven powertrains from prior generations yet. “It’s expected that you’re going to have issues when you have nothing to carry over” from previous model years, he said. The survey found that the gas-powered Toyota RAV4 small SUV was the most reliable vehicle, followed by the Toyota Corolla compact car. The RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid was third, followed by the RAV4 gas-electric hybrid, Fisher said. Consumer Reports’ survey of its subscriber base does not represent all vehicle purchasers in the U.S. or the population that bought specific vehicle types. The survey results were released at a meeting of the Automotive Press Association of Detroit.
The forced withdrawal of Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be attorney general was not a one-off. Trump’s treatment of the government as unreality TV has activated the constitutional instincts of Republican senators who were prepared to roll over for a less in-your-face version of Trump. But those instincts, once activated, are likely to stick. My reporting suggests that there are at least a dozen Republican senators who will refuse to go along with Trump’s request for recess appointments. That means full hearings for nominees, displaying sordid details, with the likelihood that the Senate will reject several, most notably Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, RFK Jr. as HHS secretary, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, and possibly others such as Mehmet Oz to run Medicare and Medicaid. Trump may well take a head count as he did with Gaetz, and there could be other withdrawals (“I’m becoming a distraction”) prior to hearings. Another significant indicator: Though it hasn’t gotten much attention, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the incoming majority leader, has said he opposes repeal of the filibuster. If Thune wanted to have the Senate be a rubber stamp for Trump, he would have his caucus kill the filibuster. That way, Trump could accomplish much of his agenda just by repealing statutes, from the Civil Service Act of 1883 to the Wagner Act, to any number of environmental and consumer laws. But with the filibuster intact, it takes 60 votes to pass ordinary laws; and Democrats, with 47 votes in their caucus, can block. Thune has handed Democrats a stunning weapon. Why would Thune oppose filibuster repeal (a rule change that takes only a simple majority)? The explanation is one part institutional. It’s a long-standing Senate tradition, and Thune knows that another day Republicans will be in the minority. But it’s one big part resistance to the idea that the Republican caucus should just do whatever Trump wants. Trump and his henchmen have threatened to primary senators who don’t bend to his will—he once urged Gov. Kristi Noem to primary Thune, whom he disparaged as a RINO. But this is also backfiring. Trump is a lame duck. He will be gone by 2028, and Republicans will have plenty of problems in 2026 without the added complication of divisive primaries. And there’s a lot more. In the campaign, Trump could paper over schisms in the Republican coalition. But they turn out to be massive once Trump attempts to govern. Exhibit A is trade. The nomination for Treasury secretary has stalled because Wall Street has applied massive pressure to have Trump name a globalist—who would oppose Trump’s entire view of economic nationalism, including tariffs. There has been a fierce campaign to keep Trump trade adviser Robert Lighthizer out of government entirely. (Trump should repurpose the National Economic Council as the National Economic and Trade Council and name Lighthizer to head it.) Exhibit B is the budget. If Trump insists on all of his tax cuts and doesn’t have massive new revenue from tariffs (which would be a disastrous policy in its own right), there are not enough politically palatable programs to cut, the boasts of Musk and Ramaswamy notwithstanding, to make up the revenue gap. That means a bigger deficit, which in turn will cause the Fed to raise interest rates and set off the crash of a badly overvalued stock market. Warren Buffett, who is pretty good at investing, , in anticipation of a huge market “correction.” On the spending side, Trump’s people say he won’t cut Social Security and Medicare, but will slash Medicaid, which provides health coverage for about 19 percent of Americans, mostly low-income. But think again. A lot of those people are constituents of Trump’s allies. Louisiana, home of House Speaker Mike Johnson, was the rare Southern state to opt for Medicaid expansion, with fully 44 percent on Medicaid. They are not all Democrats. Republicans have also talked about subjecting Medicaid recipients to work requirements. But the vast majority of poor people are working, some in two jobs, juggling work and family. Nearly a third of all Medicaid spending goes to people in nursing homes. Imagine work requirements for a 90-year-old in a walker, let alone in a memory care unit. And with cuts in the Medicaid budget for care workers, who designs and supervises work requirements? Trump also wants to use budget cuts to punish higher education, especially elite universities as nests of liberals. Slashing National Science Foundation research grants would be one easy way to do it. Yet nearly every economist agrees that much of America’s competitive advantage is rooted in great research universities. And Republican entrepreneurs depend on them. And mass deportations may be popular in some circles, until the cost of food and a variety of services like home care go up because a lot of the low-wage workforce has been exiled. It’s another Trump policy that splits nativist constituents from corporate ones. None of this means that Trump won’t inflict substantial damage. But it does mean that some parts of his program will meet massive resistance from powerful parts of his coalition, and that other aspects of his program that do get enacted will be fat targets for Democrats. In the 2026 midterm election, Trump will not be on the ballot. Republicans, with wall-to-wall control of government, will be the resented incumbent party, and the entire mess will be theirs.LAKE FOREST, Calif, Dec. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ATIF Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: ATIF , the "Company" or "ATIF") announced today that the Company plans on changing its Nasdaq ticker symbol from "ATIF” to "ZBAI”. The Company plans to announce the date and detailed plans for the official stock ticker symbol change by the end of December 2024. No actions will be required by existing shareholders with respect to the planned ticker symbol change. The Company's Ordinary Shares will continue to be listed on Nasdaq and the CUSIP will remain unchanged. About ATIF ATIF Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: ATIF ) is a Lake Forest-based business consulting company that specializes in providing professional IPO, M&A advisory and post-IPO compliance services to small and medium-sized companies seeking to go public on a stock exchange in the United States. The company has a proven track record in successfully delivering comprehensive U.S. IPO consulting services to clients primarily in the United States but also internationally. The mission of ATIF is to provide one-stop, comprehensive consulting services that guide clients through the complex and often challenging process of going public. ATIF recognizes the complexity and challenges associated with the process of going public, and endeavors to simplify it while ensuring optimal outcomes for its clients through its comprehensive consulting services. ATIF has been awarded the "Golden Bauhinia Award", the highest award in the financial and securities industry in Hong Kong, for "Top 10 Best Listed Companies". Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe Harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, "estimated," "projected," Words such as "expect", "anticipate", "predict", "plan", "intend", "believe", "seek", "may", "will", "should", "future", "propose" and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the opposite of such words or expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements do not guarantee future performance, conditions or results and involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many of which are outside the Company's control and may cause actual results or achievements to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Important factors include future financial and operating results, including revenues, income, expenses, cash balances and other financial items; Ability to manage growth and expansion; Current and future economic and political conditions; The ability to compete in industries with low barriers to entry; The ability to obtain additional financing to fund capital expenditure in the future. Ability to attract new customers and further enhance brand awareness; Ability to hire and retain qualified management and key staff; Trends and competition in the financial advisory services industry; Pandemic or epidemic disease; Except as required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, the Company cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions you that actual results may differ materially from the expected results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. You should not interpret forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Forward-looking statements represent only the beliefs and assumptions of our management as of the date such statements are made. The above forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release. Contact Information [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]