[hakfoo]

What I always wondered: are German products that much better, or is it a meme?

The thought that comes to mind is when American railways tried to import German locomotives in the 1960s. They were appealing because they offered higher horsepower ratings than anything domestic, but they required too much babying and maintenance to keep healthy and were quickly scrapped. I hear strikingly similar things from people buying German cars today-- everything tends to be expensive to keep running after the warranty expires.

I wonder if American manufacturing needs to develop its own meme. I'd suggest the old line about GM products-- they'll run poorly for a lot longer competing products run at all. That could be a compelling argument when you're selling to a manufacturing sector that's rolling out in low-development countries with unstable infrastructure, poor environmental conditions, and low-training staff.

That gives us a niche we can target and use as a base to re-bootstrap ourselves into competitiveness. We need to be decidedly better than bottom-bit Chinese (etc.) tooling, which is probably still within our abilities, and if we overdeliver there, we can begin to position American-made as a premium choice.

[count]

A large part of the expense on the cars is import tariffs and shipping/freight expense. Upkeep on a German car in Germany is substantially less expensive.

[geitir]

All I know is I've been in an Audi and the center console had so much unnecessary stuff going on. It's a stereotype for a reason German stuff is performant and precise but over engineered