The CR article referenced compares "BRANDS", not models. This is the article's greatest Achilles Heel as far as I am concerned.
They are comparing a brand, Tesla, which makes ONLY EVs, against other automaker Brands that make all sorts of vehicles, but overwhelmingly ICE vehicles.
While I might want to know how any given vehicle compares to another in terms of whether it is safe and likely to get me home, it is unfair and misleading to compare the exhaust system of a Nissan Leaf to that of a Jeep Cherokee, which is exactly how they derived these Brand ratings.
It would far more meaningful to compare the reliability of a Leaf to a Model 3 or Model Y, using common attributes. No one I know of is looking to compare a Dodge Challenger to a Rivian pickup in terms of reliability. It would be meaningless both in a real-world sense and in terms of logic. I would want to know how reliable a Dodge EV is compared to a Rivian EV. Of course, neither one exists as far as owner's experience and we would have to rely on historical data to...oh, wait.