What vehicle do you drive?

ToeMissile said:

Asian cultures or euro car OEMs?

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China. Claiming that they have cultural differences that prevent them from creating quality automobiles despite the fact that like 80% of everything is made by them at every quality level is a bit dubious.

Sanrith Descartes said:

Someone mentioned Nissan. How does Nissan in general compare to Toyota/Honda/Hyundai/Kia. I have this impression of Nissan not being all that good but honestly don't know it's warranted. I'm talking general sedans like Altima, Sentra and the like.

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Equal with those companies in the 80's and 90's. Worse than American cars now.

Sanrith Descartes said:

Someone mentioned Nissan. How does Nissan in general compare to Toyota/Honda/Hyundai/Kia. I have this impression of Nissan not being all that good but honestly don't know it's warranted. I'm talking general sedans like Altima, Sentra and the like.

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From my personal experience Nissan has always been trash.

Mizake said:

Oh, so you've seen this crumbling infrastructure in person? Or are you just parroting what you've read and seen from CNN and MSM?

I go to China every year for business. I've been to Russia 5-6 times in my life.

There is a reason all the propaganda you read is negative regarding these 2 countries. Because they are the perceived enemies of the US.

From my personal experience, Russia has the most beautiful women in the world, bar none, not even countries like Sweden or Brazil. They are also doing quite well economically, although you would never get that sense from our news. I can't speak about the last few years since the Ukraine war broke out, but definitely up to mid 2010s Russia was quite prosperous.

China is doing fine also. Of course, all you read in the news is about how the country is falling apart, their economy is in shambles, etc.

It would be like if someone shined a spotlight on the worst parts of the US, like black Chicago or inner city Baltimore and had you believe that was how the rest of America was.

Honestly I thought people on this board would be smart enough to realize almost everything published by MSM is propaganda.

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Can China make a safe, reliable car? Sure. Whether they will or not is a different question. Crumbling infrastructure or not, Asia (not counting Japan) just has a different mindset when it comes to safety and quality. My source is living in South Korea for a while, not propaganda. Seeing things that most Americans would consider death-traps is so common that it stops even registering. Instead of things being "safety at all costs", it's more like "well, he should have known better" (not 100% bad of course). Only spent some vacation in China, but everything I saw there was in the same direction, but dialed up to 11. Human life just isn't equally valued in all places.

Not positive, but I'm pretty sure, at least when I was there, the Korean car models sold to the domestic market were built very differently than the ones exported to the US. The Koreans would accept dealing with a level of shit that the Americans wouldn't. I'm sure that with a big enough push to export to the US, China would straighten things out similarly, but I wouldn't want to be first in line for a new EV built for their domestic market.

Not 100% on target, but automotive fatality rates are probably a reasonable barometer for how much various countries care about safety. Per mile and/or per trip numbers would probably the better metric, but quick googles didn't give me those for China. I would also expect that the average trip speed in Asia would be considerably lower than in the US, making the difference even bigger than it appears.

Sanrith Descartes said:

Someone mentioned Nissan. How does Nissan in general compare to Toyota/Honda/Hyundai/Kia. I have this impression of Nissan not being all that good but honestly don't know it's warranted. I'm talking general sedans like Altima, Sentra and the like.

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Nissan has a deep indifference towards product quality.

Cad said:

Didn't say that.

What I do assert is that the Chinese if left to their own devices don't have a lot of pride in workmanship, they are a corner-cutting haggling culture that constantly feel like "good enough" is the goal to strive for.

Can they make quality goods? Sure. Is it their way? No. Can they surprise me? Sure absolutely. Japan on the other hand has an almost maniacal culture about things being proper and right which doesn't surprise me at all considering what I know of their products. Chinese culture doesn't surprise me at all either considering what I know of their products.

Is it possible for China to make goods for export that are every bit as high quality as those from any other country - absolutely. I just don't expect it based on prior results. Same for Italy or Russia making cars. Can Italy make some badass cars? Obviously. They also make a lot of Fiats.

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Is your claim that Japan has never produced an inferior product or has no issues? I think that's a bit of a stretch from the country that has Mitsubishi and Nissan.

Also, lol...

Cad said:

Are you fucking retarded?

Show me where I said Japan has never produced an inferior product or China is incapable of producing a quality product, either. Never said either one. Knock down your strawmen elsewhere.

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You're the one claiming you have some mystical insight into the Chinese psyche here...

Cad said:

Show me where I claimed that. Again. Are you fucking retarded?

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"What I do assert is that the Chinese if left to their own devices don't have a lot of pride in workmanship, they are a corner-cutting haggling culture that constantly feel like "good enough" is the goal to strive for."

"Japan on the other hand has an almost maniacal culture about things being proper and right"

Calm down senpai, just admit you're just into anime and had a few bad experiences on Alibaba.

Cad said:

None of that is controversial or requires any insight into any psyche. Basic observations. If you don't agree, great. I don't care.

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So Chinese people can make your iPhone, your Yeti cooler, 90% of the parts in your non-Chinese vehicle, etc., but they can't develop a quality car.

OK let's assume that's because they have a hwite man designing products. They can't hire people to design the vehicle and then assemble it the same way they do all the best in class products in every other category they make consumer goods for?

So yea, I don't understand how anyone can come to the conclusion that the Chinese can't be a player in the auto market.

From my experiences Cad is closer to correct on Chinese manufacturing. I have to buy lots of items from China because they're no longer made in the US. I really hate that it has to be that way. But many of the manufacturers I deal with have fail rates around 15%, sometimes much worse. Almost as if it's done purposely across the board. Like they give a low price but out of 1,000 items you have to throw out 150-200 after quality checks, so you end up needing to order more often.

I once brought this up to a manufacturer when I was getting cases of 20 items and there was always 4 in that box that couldn't be used. Like no matter what, 3-4 would be bad. I'm not shitting you, his exact quote was "Oh, you want only the 'boutique' models?" WTF? Yeh, I only want the good ones. Guess what, price has to go up 20%. I actually had to tell them that I don't want any shit products. Of course I still get them, but the percentage goes down a bit.

I know they're capable of making good stuff and I know there are some good manufacturers in China. And I'm sure they can improve either way. But I swear they need to be reminded or threatened every time an order is placed. I'm not sure if it's done on purpose so you have to buy more products quicker, but I truly believe fail rates are somehow built in to how they manufacture.

Cad said:

I seriously think you are fucking retarded. Do you always talk in absolutes or only when trolling? How can you keep going back to these black/white statements when I made nothing of the sort?

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I'll put it this way. Absent any geopolitical crazy, I think China will enter Western (we'll say Europe or US auto markets) with a compelling value proposition in the same way Japan and Korea did. I don't know if it's going to be much before 2028/2030 but EVs are a neat way to bypass the R&D burden ICE had. If Vietnam can do it so can China.

Interestingly, a lot of OEMs are shitting their pants over what they see with the infotainment systems in Chinese vehicles - conversational level voice commands for most aspects of the vehicle, reductive design with very few hard switches, lots of screens loaded with gimmicky bullshit (like rain in the background if it's raining outside).

I personally hate all of that stuff, wish they would just give me android auto/carplay and leave me alone, but every OEM is trying to come up with whatever they can so the data is flowing through the car and not your phone, so, expect to see this stuff coming soon to all new vehicles. Expect to also see a huge uptick in infotainment system recalls since the backup camera is government regulated and all this complexity is going to impact stability.

Palum said:

I'll put it this way. Absent any geopolitical crazy, I think China will enter Western (we'll say Europe or US auto markets) with a compelling value proposition in the same way Japan and Korea did. I don't know if it's going to be much before 2028/2030 but EVs are a neat way to bypass the R&D burden ICE had. If Vietnam can do it so can China.

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Vinfast from Vietnam isn't doing it. It is a laughably shit car that not even Vietnamese people buy. I'd be surprised if they make it a year before giving up here.