EV Risk Index Data & Citation Guide

This page is for journalists, researchers, repair professionals, video creators, and anyone else who references EV Risk Index data. It defines what our numbers mean, gives you copy-ready attribution formats, and explains our versioning so future readers can identify the vehicle, methodology version, and date associated with your citation.

If you only need one line, use this:

Everything else on this page exists to make that citation precise, durable, and easy to check.

What the data is

The Failure Index is an editorial risk score from 0 to 100 assigned to each electric vehicle model year we track — currently 321 EVs across 32 brands (as of September 2026). Higher scores indicate greater assessed ownership risk — potential failure exposure, expensive repairs, or long-term reliability concerns — for that model year in general; they say nothing about any individual car, which must always be independently inspected.

Each score is built from six weighted factors — battery chemistry, thermal management, recall history, platform maturity, vehicle weight stress, and supplier reliability — and maps to one of four risk bands: Low (0–30), Moderate (31–60), High (61–80), and Critical (81–100).

Scores are built from publicly verifiable data: regulator recall and defect records — principally NHTSA and Transport Canada, with DVSA (UK), KBA (Germany), and EU Safety Gate records where applicable — manufacturer technical service bulletins, owner reports corroborated by regulatory filings or service documentation, and peer-reviewed battery research. We accept no manufacturer funding, advertising, or paid placements.

The Failure Index is not a crash-safety rating (those come from NHTSA, IIHS, and Euro NCAP), not an owner-survey reliability score in the Consumer Reports or J.D. Power tradition, and not a recommendation to buy or avoid any specific vehicle. The full definition of what the index is and is not, including every factor weight, is published in our methodology.

Methodology and versioning

The complete methodology — factor definitions, weights, risk bands, and data sources — is published at evriskindex.com/methodology/. The current revision was published in April 2026 and is designated version 2026.1 for citation purposes. Future revisions will increment this number and be recorded in the changelog below.

Failure Index scores are living numbers: we update them when new recalls are issued, new defect investigations open, or significant new ownership data emerges, and we publish correction notices when a score changes materially. This has two consequences for anyone citing the data. First, include an accessed date in your citation — it records when the cited score was observed and distinguishes it from later updates. Second, use a citation identifier, which makes explicit which methodology version your citation refers to.

How to cite

In an article or report:

In a video description or show notes:

Full reference (research, formal reports):

Replace the bracketed placeholders with the values shown on the vehicle's page on the day you access it, and adjust the vehicle, date, and identifier to your case. Where possible, link the specific vehicle page rather than our homepage — deep links let your readers land directly on the score you cited.

Citing the Failure Index dataset as a whole:

Citation identifiers

Every rated vehicle can be referenced with a stable identifier of the form:

EVRI-FI-<version>-<VEHICLE-ID>

where the EVRI-FI prefix identifies the EV Risk Index Failure Index dataset, version is the Failure Index methodology version the citation refers to, written in URL-safe form (V2026-1 for methodology v2026.1), and VEHICLE-ID is the vehicle's canonical page slug in upper case (the slug already ends in the model year). For example:

EVRI-FI-V2026-1-HYUNDAI-IONIQ-5-2022 → evriskindex.com/vehicles/hyundai-ioniq-5-2022/

To resolve any identifier: take everything after the version component (after V2026-1 in the example), lower-case it, and append it to evriskindex.com/vehicles/.

The version component records the Failure Index methodology version that applied when the citation was created. The resolved vehicle URL is a living page: it may later display a score produced under a newer methodology version.

Stability contract. An identifier permanently identifies one vehicle model year under one Failure Index methodology version, and is never reused or reassigned to another vehicle or methodology version. Because Failure Index scores can change as new evidence emerges, citations should also include an accessed date. When the methodology is revised, new citations use the new version component, and the revision — with any superseded identifiers — is recorded in the changelog below. EVRI citation identifiers identify the cited vehicle and methodology version; they are not archival score snapshots and not DOIs.

Language independence. Citation identifiers are language-independent: every language edition of EV Risk Index uses the same identifier, always derived from the English canonical vehicle slug. Localized pages do not create separate identifiers.

Stable links

These URLs are canonical and maintained. Deep-link them directly rather than copying their content — copies go stale, links do not.

Reuse terms

EV Risk Index content is free to index, quote, cite, and summarize with attribution — the name "EV Risk Index" and a link to the cited page or to evriskindex.com. Scores may be quoted in articles, videos, forums, academic work, and internal research using the formats above.

Two things we ask you not to do: do not present Failure Index scores as safety ratings, warranties, or guarantees about any specific vehicle; and do not imply that EV Risk Index endorses a product, listing, or service because it cites our data. For substantial republication of the dataset, or commercial products built on it, contact evriskindex.info@gmail.com first.

Embeddable attribution card

If you reference our data on your own site — a dealership page, a repair shop's resources section, a blog post, a video's companion page — you can use this card. It is plain HTML: no JavaScript, no tracking. It uses only inline styles, loads nothing from our servers, and renders consistently in most web contexts.

Copy this code:

<div style="max-width:340px;border:1px solid #d8d2c4;border-left:4px solid #185fa5;background:#ffffff;color:#1a1a1a;font-family:system-ui,-apple-system,'Segoe UI',Roboto,Arial,sans-serif;padding:16px 18px;line-height:1.45;">
  <p style="margin:0 0 6px;font-size:11px;font-weight:700;letter-spacing:.08em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#185fa5;">EV Risk Index</p>
  <p style="margin:0 0 8px;font-size:15px;font-weight:600;">As of September 2026: 321 EVs across 32 brands on the 0–100 Failure Index.</p>
  <p style="margin:0 0 10px;font-size:12px;color:#555555;">Independent editorial ratings built on regulator recall data · Six-factor methodology</p>
  <p style="margin:0;font-size:13px;"><a href="https://evriskindex.com/" style="color:#185fa5;text-decoration:underline;">evriskindex.com</a></p>
</div>

You may change the citing sentence to reference a specific vehicle and link its page instead of our homepage — for example, "2022 Hyundai IONIQ 5: Failure Index [score]/100" linking to the vehicle page. Keep the attribution line and the link intact.

Machine-readable metadata

This page embeds a schema.org Dataset description (JSON-LD) of the Failure Index — coverage, methodology version, update date, and canonical URLs — for search engines and citation tools that parse structured data. A plain-text, AI-readable summary of the whole site is maintained at evriskindex.com/llms.txt.

Changelog

2026-09-21 — Correction: the methodology page previously stated that higher Failure Index scores indicate a higher probability of failure. They do not. Failure Index v2026.1 is an editorial assessment under the published six-factor methodology; a higher score represents a higher editorial assessment under that rubric and is not a probability of failure, nor a prediction about any individual vehicle. Wording corrected on the English and French methodology pages. No methodology change, no score changes, no superseded citation identifiers.

2026-09-20 — Coverage corrected from 322 to 321 rated model-years following removal of an unverified pre-production vehicle entry. No methodology change.

2026-09-19 — Guide first published. Current methodology: v2026.1 (April 2026 revision). No superseded citation identifiers.

Correction notices for material score changes are published on the affected vehicle pages; changes that affect methodology versioning or citation identifiers are recorded here.