What makes Japanese Cars so good?

[Priam]

[Management degree hat ON]

What makes Japanese manufacturers so successful? Well, a lot of it has already been touched on before: Total Quality Management, a drive towards excellence rather than average, a general investment in reliability before ridiculous frills. One thing I’d like to expand on is the network of suppliers. Maybe you’re aware of how Wal*Mart integrates tightly with its suppliers? Japan has been doing it for longer, but they don’t do it via bullying. They form keiretsus.

What are these? They’re consortiums of mutually owned businesses tied around (generally) a heavy manufacturer (Toyota would be an example) and a large capital firm (a bank or insurance company). Every company owns shares of every other company, and no company sells their shares to an outsider without consent from the entire keiretsu. In exchange, all the companies look out for one another. If you are a supplier to Toyota manufacturing, you will provide them with the finest product you can turn out. Why? Because they’ll stick by you just as much. If you have finanical troubles, guess who will be there to help you. These bonds of loyalty and honor are held in great esteem.

In the USA, by contrast, we tend to have less loyalty to our suppliers. If another company offers you a lower price for their competing brand, you switch to that company even if it means losing a loyal friend.

[Aagramn]

@F. U. Shakespeare

But a while back, I read in the Washington Post that while there wasn’t some nefarious plot as alleged, there was indeed a bias, probably unintentional, in comparisons of Japanese cars to domestic models.

Specifically, Japanese cars sold here in the US have gone through more testing than their counterparts sold in Japan.

The reasons for this have nothing to do with trying to cheat the system – rather, if you’re going to have to fix a car 12,000 miles from the factory, you better make damn sure you’ve got the bugs worked out of that model first.

And, according to the article, American car companies do the same thing when they sell cars overseas.

I don’t think this is right. Firstly a lot of Japanese cars are built outside Japan, and in Europe American cars have a poor reputation.

Japanese quality standards are maintained even when their cars are built in overseas factories, so it’s not down to the culture, it’s how the companies are run.

[asterion]

These keiretsus, would they be legal under American law? It’s an interesting idea, but for some reason it sets off alarm bells for me.

[smiling_bandit]

Keiretsus would be very sticky, legally speaking. Maybe not outirght illegal, but it would definitely get the Feds looking at you in askance. And it’s gotten a lot of those capital companies in trouble in Japan, with certain kinds of uncollectible debts.

Of course, Japanese society is more egalitarian than American society.

Don’t believe that line for a minute. The differences may express themselves in different ways, and it’s not all about showing it off, but the Japanese, if anything, are far more class conscious than you’ll ever see in America. They don’t show it neccessarily, and they don’t have the ego thing going, though.

The Japanese seem more adept at adapting to changing situations and new technologies.

The car companies, certainly. Most of the Japanese industries are not doing well, now, especially the banks.

Ironically, the most famous Japanese success story is also the biggest American failure story, and both are in great contradiction to the general flow of each country’s economy.

[E-Sabbath]

Keiretsus also run certain functions of the government. Toyota, for example, runs the DMV.

Notice that a manufacturer has to submit designs to the DMV several years before the car can be released in order to get approval for the vehicle to be allowed on the road.

Notice Toyota’s fine, Mercedes-like styling.

[Carnac_the_Magnificent]

@Aagramn

I don’t think this is right. Firstly a lot of Japanese cars are built outside Japan, and in Europe American cars have a poor reputation.

Japanese quality standards are maintained even when their cars are built in overseas factories, so it’s not down to the culture, it’s how the companies are run.

The OP’s premise is faulty and throughout this thread, people are rehashing events from the 1970s and 1980s. We might as well discuss IBM’s 8086 chip and its relevance to the exploration of Mars.

Consumer Reports and its parent company, Consumers Union, reports that American cars have made huge strides in quality in recent years, narrowing the gap between so-called American and Japanese cars (itself an inaccurate depiction) so that the quality is largely indistinguishable between most cars. True, some US manufacturers continue to churn out comparitively substandard automobiles, but the gap is narrow and narrowing. If “American” cars have a poor reputation in Europe, I’d surmise this bad reputation can be traced back to the bad old days.

[Imasquare]

@ralph124c

Now that gas is pushing towards $3.00, FORD and GM are really in trouble! They have no profitable line of small cars to sell…

The exact same situation occurred in the 1970s. It was so bad that in 1979 Chrysler very nearly went out of business - they were instead saved by cheap loans from the US federal government. All three manufacturers were scrambling to develop small fuel efficient cars to compete with the Japanese imports and were losing enormous amounts of money and market share.

You would think after a near-death experience like that they would have changed their ways, but 25 years later the same thing is happening again. I really don’t think the likes of GM and Ford really deserve to stay in business.

[DirkGntly]

I thought the Japanese were better at building stuff (especially small parts) because caucasians are just too damn tall.
(A thousand points to the first person to catch that reference.)

[DirkGntly]

So why are GM and Ford in such bad shape, but Chrysler is still kicking. Oh, wait…it’s Daimler-Chrysler now. Hey, my truck is a Mercedes!! Cool!

[Johnny_L.A]

@DirkGntly

I thought the Japanese were better at building stuff (especially small parts) because caucasians are just too damn tall.
(A thousand points to the first person to catch that reference.)

Gung Ho (Michael Keaton, 1986)?

[Aeschines]

Idea: The dice were thrown and we just happened to end up in the US with three very crappy companies as winners in the auto game.

Automaking being such a capital-intensive business, domestic competitors can’t pop up easily (poor Delorian). Several pretty cool makers were weeded out over the years, not necessarily because they had bad cars (Studebaker, Nash, Tucker, etc.). So we are stuck with GM and Ford now as the only major truly domestic companies. I’m not a fan of either company’s wares.

But let’s not forget that there are a lot of crappy car companies in Japan that refuse to die (or at least close down their shitty passenger car divisions): Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Suzuki don’t exactly call to mind superior quality and innovative marketing. Subaru is excellent but a minor player.

I interviewed at Nissan in 2002. The French guy who interviewed me (not from Renault, BTW) said that, despite Ghosn’s leadership, the company was still run by Old Boys who would never give a young foreigner like me anything to do. Depressing.

I’ve done PR work for two Japanese automakers (hint: they’re really big and I haven’t mentioned them yet) and have thereby peered deeply into their corporate psyche. Their quality is excellent but their self-images are totally clueless. Endless narcissistic blabbing. One is not given the impression that their management is on the ball.

I’ve also done PR work for Subaru and have no problem saying that that company is totally cool.

Despite what I’ve said above, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the real problem with American vehicles is not quality but dullness and a lack of excitement. We’ve seen a real devolution in style since the 1970s. GM just gave up on an initiative to produce cool new rear-wheel-drive cars.

Others have already said that quality in US cars is not really the issue, so here’s my limb: Japanese cars by the Big Three (Toyota, Honda, Nissan) also share the same issue: dullness and clunk-o styling. Sure, Lexus (Toyota), Acura (Honda), and Infiniti (Nissan)–the premium marques–are comparatively decent with nothing from GM/Ford/D-C to really compete (Cadillac?!). They are good cars, they are advanced cars, but they are also fairly uninspiring cars.

In fact, if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of why Japanese cars are better, I would say that the three premium lines are it. They are well-positioned. They offer marginally better styling and quality but all-around superior performance (look at Symmetrical AWD on the Acura).

As far as your basic Japanese and US models, it is all the same shyte.

The comment about Japan being more egalitarian was absolutely correct. Whether you look at the numbers (CEO pay is a much lower multiple of base worker pay, etc.) or cultural realities (very well-described by Hyperelastic), the point is proved.

I don’t think the comment about keiretsu reflects today’s realities in the Japanese business world and requires some cites or facts to back it up regarding the automakers. The prevalence and nature of keiretsu has always varied by industry.

[DirkGntly]

[HIJACK]
Johnny L.A., It’s from Crazy People, a Dudley Moore movie from 1990. He uses people in an asylum to create ad copy for major corporations, and the “honesty” of the ads draws the public. At the end of the movie, they play an “ad” for Sony, showing the efficiency of the Japanese workers constructing small circuits, etc., and then tall Americans fumbling at the same tasks. The clincher for the commercial is the last line (and the last line of the movie), “Sony, because caucasians are just too damn tall.”
[/HIJACK]

[Stonebow]

@DirkGntly

[HIJACK]
Johnny L.A., It’s from Crazy People, a Dudley Moore movie from 1990. He uses people in an asylum to create ad copy for major corporations, and the “honesty” of the ads draws the public. At the end of the movie, they play an “ad” for Sony, showing the efficiency of the Japanese workers constructing small circuits, etc., and then tall Americans fumbling at the same tasks. The clincher for the commercial is the last line (and the last line of the movie), “Sony, because caucasians are just too damn tall.”
[/HIJACK]

[continuing hijack]
Other good slogans from Crazy People:
Volvo: Boxy but Good
Porsche: too small to get laid IN, but you will get laid, trust us
Forget France- come to Greece. We’re nicer.
Cum in the Bahamas
Most of our passengers arrive alive
[/continuing hijack]

[Johnny_L.A]

@Stonebow

Porsche: too small to get laid IN, but you will get laid, trust us

Erm… I got laid in the 924. Agus fágaimíd siúd mar atá sé.

[Blackclaw]

I do not believe the OP has proven his initial conclusion, that Japanese cars are good. Certainly not all Japanese cars are good. The 1978 Honda Accord Hatchback was noted by Forbes magazine thus:

Early Honda Accord buyers were delighted to have a small car that looked and drove better than comparable American offerings. What they weren’t so happy about were young Honda’s Fiat-like quality problems; had they remained unaddressed, Honda may have gone the way of Fiat in this country. The first Accord’s fenders would rust from the inside out. Pieces of interior trim would change color or fall off. An Accord owner might change his transmission five or six times, as he watched his primitive aluminum engine blow its gaskets.

http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2004/01/26/cx_dl_0126feat.html

Given a broad perspective there are some who argue that Japanese designs do not have the highest safety standards.

American cars tend to be the best used car value because they give you more car for the money. While you may not think American cars are as good as Japanese, it’s just not true. That assumption helps American cars devaluate quicker so they become better used car values. Structurally and mechanically American cars appear to be some of the most durable cars in the world. In addition, they are often less expensive to repair with lower priced parts and repair facilities are more common than foreign vehicles.

If you study the history of crashworthiness you will see a pattern emerging. Going back ten years, Japanese cars, many of them smaller, have poorer overall safety histories compared with American cars. They may have better reliability statistics, but you cannot drive a vehicle if you’re not around. Some of the best used car values have names likes Chevrolet, Ford, Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Mercury. You will likely pay more for both European and Japanese vehicles because of their perceived value.

http://www.autoadvisor.com/information/article.php3?a=letsbefrank

There have been, and are, some terrible Japanese designs on the road just as the same can be said about car designs from any nation. Given that, I put forth that the OP is starting from a false presumption.

[Loopydude]

The Japanese sure seem to be more visionary these days. I’ve had my new Prius for two weeks now, and I love it. I love it. It’s not a pig, and driving it is like playing a goddamn video game. I’m actually competing with myself to see if I can get to work in the same amount of time while using less gasoline. This exercise will probably wind up saving me $50 a year, if I’m lucky, over ignoring the little bar graphs and regenerated-wattage symbols. Who cares? It’s fun!

GM executives did the math and said “Americans will never go for this. They don’t care about green, and won’t pay extra for Jappy bells-and-whistles. Gas is inexpensive, so everybody oughtta have SUVs with giant V8s and drive their land-yachts through the burbs with a big shit-eating grin on their faces, all on the cheap.”

Well, Toyota is making record profits, the waiting-period is still at least three months for a new Prius, and GM’s stock is in the crapper. Not only do they build an inferior product, they can’t even figure out that some people give more than two shits, that gas prices might go up, and overall, Americans can be frugal, consceintious, and technophillic enough to pay a little extra for something, whilst demanding quality.

[rjung]

All I know is, as a consumer, every American-branded car my family has ever bought has had “lemon” problems and/or fallen apart after a few years[sup]*[/sup], whereas every Japanese-branded car has lasted two or three times as long and had far fewer problems.

If Japanese quality is an illusion, it’s a pretty effective one.

[sup]*[/sup] The one notable exception being a Dodge Omni hatchback, but that was actually a French design re-branded for the States.

[smiling_bandit]

We’ve seen a real devolution in style since the 1970s.

I agree. It’s not just engineering: why aren’t the companies putting a little flash in it? All the cars look the same nowadays. It might not have to be as big, but Cadillac still makes exotic, distinctive cars. make something that sets it apart form the competition. Give it a distinctive hood shape or a nice a neat tail.

[Tuckerfan]

@Carnac the Magnificent!

Consumer Reports and its parent company, Consumers Union, reports that American cars have made huge strides in quality in recent years, narrowing the gap between so-called American and Japanese cars (itself an inaccurate depiction) so that the quality is largely indistinguishable between most cars. True, some US manufacturers continue to churn out comparitively substandard automobiles, but the gap is narrow and narrowing. If “American” cars have a poor reputation in Europe, I’d surmise this bad reputation can be traced back to the bad old days.

But Japanese cars tend to expire all at once (not really, of course, it just happens to seem that way), whereas American cars tend to have a gradual die-off, with little bits and pieces going wrong with the car (like the windows not working, the radio dying, etc.) and it starts much sooner with those than on Japanese cars.

As someone pointed out, one of the best things to happen to the Japanese was the oil embargo in the 1970s, but not entirely for the reasons people commonly think. While car makers in the US were idling their plants and laying off workers, the Japanese were ripping out the machinery in their plants and replacing them with newer, more energy efficient machines. The Japanese had figured out that even if oil prices dropped below their previous levels, the savings would be great enough to pay for the new machines (and they periodically do this now, since they still enjoy the savings), so not only did they benefit from the oil shocks by increased sales, they benefited from lower costs to produce those cars.

[China_Guy]

@Aeschines

But let’s not forget that there are a lot of crappy car companies in Japan that refuse to die (or at least close down their shitty passenger car divisions): Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Suzuki don’t exactly call to mind superior quality and innovative marketing. Subaru is excellent but a minor player.

One slight nitpick is Mazda. Mazda is the one driving new product at Ford.

Without getting too revealing, I am driving the automotive strategy for China at the multinational I work for. from what I know, the US and to a lesser exent European auto industry has two major problems.

1. quality. If you don’t build it right the first time, then it costs a lot more to fix it. US warranty costs were IIRC USD20+ billion in 2004. Build it right, have systems in place to catch problems and trends early, feed it back into your suppliers, etc. This whole loop takes way to long.
2. Build what people want to buy. If it’s sitting on the dealer lot, it’s costing the makers money. Someone’s got to finance it, discount it, rebate it, etc.

toyota, Nissan and Honda are a lot better at the above two points. Also financially much healthier. Just a wag, but Toyota debt is probably rated A, whilst GM and Ford are Junk. Nissan is debt free. Contrast with the legacy issue is there with GM pension costs of about USD1,800/vehicle and Ford around USD1,500 (this means $1,800 is an additional cost for every GM vehicle).