American cars have a long-standing history of not being as reliable/durable as Japanese cars, what keeps the US from being able to make quality cars? Can we not just reverse engineer a Toyota, or hire their top engineers for more money?

Question

A lot of Japanese manufacturers like Toyota and Honda, some of the brands with a reputation for the highest quality and longest lasting cars, have factories in the US… and they’re cheaper to buy than a lot of US comparable vehicles. Why can the US not figure out how to make a high quality car that is affordable and one that lasts as long as these other manufacturers?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

The problem with American cars is not with the design of the cars, but the process we use to make them.

You can use “defects per hundred car” as a way to measure quality, and there is *nothing* you can learn from examining an individual Toyota car which will teach you how to decrease the number of defects per hundred fords.

The process which Toyota uses to make cars encourages workers to feel proud of their work, and also involves the workers and managers being friendly with each other.

American business owners think workers and managers being friendly is utterly alien and nonsensical and stupid.

You might respond “if its stupid but it works, it’s not actually stupid,” but business owners are stubborn in strange ways.

Weirdos!