Automakers spend billions of dollars to promote their vehicles and build brand awareness. Yet, marketing alone does not shape consumer perception without a clear connection to the vehicles in the showroom. In the latest Auto Pulse survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, Toyota and Honda brands ranked first and second, respectively, by dominant margins over all others. Likewise, the vehicles from those brands have consistently performed well in our testing, often ranking among the best in their classes, and have been mostly at the top of our reliability ratings over the years.

This CR's random, nationwide telephone survey focused on how consumers perceive and rank car brands in seven crucial areas, including safety, quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technological innovation. It also looks at which of those factors are most important to people when buying a vehicle. The Consumer Reports National Research Center contacted 2,037 adults, and the survey data was collected from the 1,720 adults whose households own at least one car. (Consumer Reports Auto Pulse surveys track current opinions, perceptions, and buying trends. They are not a direct reflection of CR readers or subscribers, but rather a randomized sample of the American consumer automotive marketplace.)

Major findings from the survey include:

• Among new-car shoppers, safety (63 percent) is the most important consideration, followed by quality (58 percent).
• Consumers consider friendliness to the environment (35 percent) to be more significant than styling (23 percent).
• The category "technology and innovation" (15 percent) scored as least important to car buyers.
• Toyota and Honda rank in the top five in six of the seven surveyed categories, with design/styling being the exception for each.
• Chevrolet and Ford are the only U.S. brands that rank in the top five in three categories. 
• Consumers overwhelmingly perceive Volvo as the leading safety brand. Its 77-percent score gives it a dominant lead over second-place Toyota's 20 percent.
• Toyota (49 percent) and Honda (26 percent) have, by far, the strongest images for environmental friendliness. Their scores are significantly higher than third-place Ford (16 percent).

Read the full report "Consumer Reports Car Brand Perceptions Survey," including the best and worst overall, and the leaders in each category.

—Jeff Bartlett