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by susan_hall
3575 days ago
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You might be interested in a book called The European Revenge, written in 1973 by two writers from the Economist magazine. It made the argument that some day in the near future, European auto makers, such as Mercedes Benz and BMW, would be able to make automobiles that were as good as American automobiles. And they were correct. Mercedes Benz and BMW did eventually catch up to the Americans. Nowadays, many people would argue that Mercedes Benz and BMW represent a level of quality that is much higher than what you can get from American automobiles. If Europe hasn't yet caught up to the USA in consumer electronics, perhaps that is because Europe hasn't yet made the concerted effort to catch up. |
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That said, they were and are made to a different design ethos - American cars have never been designed for balanced performance like German cars have, they instead have been designed for comfort and trouble-free operation (meaning next to no maintenance). America long made the only car in the world that could go 100,000 miles with nothing but fluid changes, and other wear items. No European car can really do that, all of the German makes have a pretty aggressive preventative maintenance schedule.
Japan to an extent does build cars to the american ethos - they build to the American ethos, but localized to the Japanese market to a greater or lesser extent -but then again they were taught car building by the Americans after WWII - which is I think why Japanese cars have been so successful in the American market.