I find that German cars have really dropped in quality. My dad changes car leases every 2 -3 years. Over the past decade, he's driven Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Genesis. They were all brand new when he got them. He's only ever had problems with the German brands. His BMW crapped out twice, once on the highway and once while waiting at a light. My brother bought a BMW and he's constantly having to take it to the shop for repairs because something keeps dying. Over the past 5 years, my other friends that drive German cars usually always have issues. Meanwhile, my friends that drive Japanese or Korean brands seldom have to take them in aside for regular maintenance purposes.
Germans cars have never been particuarly reliable, that isn't the same as quality. The low reliability is mostly due to excessive complexity in the upmarket models they sell in the USA- too many features and exotic performance focused engines. The simple and reliable basic models from most of the german car companies aren't sold in the USA. It doesn't change the fact that the components, materials, and engineering are excellent, and they will last a lifetime if maintained well. The safety, performance, and driver experience are unparalleled.
That is utter bullshit. European brands are aside from Japanese ones the best at quality control. Even the oldest Volkswagen in my family is still in use, even it is over 30 years old. I mean there were some series of BMW that were bad, but those days are gone for good.
Apart from the engines (specially high performance and the diesel ones - forgetting the emissions scandal), and brand German cars do not have any real competitive edge. If you are willing to pay the price tag you can find craftsmanship, driving dynamics, safety, reliability elsewhere.
In an EV world where software and electronic quirks are the main demand drivers (ev power trains cannot offer differentiation), Chinese are very well positioned to take over the lead.
I agree with the reliability, but haven't seen that in the rest of what you mention. I'm definitely a car snob, and have driven high end luxury and sports cars from the Japanese and American companies, and they just don't have the driving experience, attention to detail, etc. of say, even a base model Porsche. It's tiny details most people probably don't notice- keeping the wind noise down with the windows and/or convertible top down, using corrosion resistant fasteners and coatings everywhere, perfectly tuning the pedal responsiveness and steering feel, balancing the weight, getting the gear ratios and/or shifting programs just right for performance driving, putting pillars in the right place for road visibility, etc. Also things like massively over-sizing the cooling and braking systems so they don't overheat under extreme conditions or hard use.
There is also the effectivness of the traction and stability control systems- which I think is related partially to oversizing the brakes. Even "serious" offroad vehicles from Lexus and Toyota don't have nearly as good of traction control offroad as a basic German passenger car.
So what would I get from China instead of a BMW M4 or Audi S5? That would be on par for craftsmanship, dynamics, safety, reliability, price. I'm quite curious.
For ICE? There is no Chinese competition, but Kia stinger and Lexus RC are direct competition.
In an EV world even the Hyundai Ioniq 5 can smoke the M4 or the S5. Take it for a test drive you will be shocked. For Chinese both BYD and Xiaomi have offerings in the space.
(Btw I own an RS5 and would never trade it for an soul-less ev, but there are very few of us who care)
Those byds are really bad, just like the Xiaomi ones. They are falling apart and disturbing the public safety; one of the panels almost hit a passenger
I mean who says that gas prices will not 10x in the next 20 years ? Crude oil is a scarce resource and it has become very inefficient to extract. Which is why even fracking is nowadays viable (at $100/barrel)
If you sell me the said futures I will happily buy because nobody else sells.
Hint to not go bankrupt before you decide to sell me, check the average current costs per barrel for the giants like xom and cvx. This is the price floor.
It will be more reliable because of its simplicity, but it won't last longer if they're both maintained to a high standard. You can't really get around the fact that a much higher end car using more expensive materials, construction processes, etc. is going to wear better over time. All of the highest mileage cars in the world are old european cars- mostly Volvos and Mercedes.
It also depends on how you use it... a Porsche isn't as reliable in daily driving as a Honda, but the Honda could be destroyed immediately with hard driving on a race track, and you could do it everyday for years in the Porsche.
I drive an old VW and old Porsche that are both decades old, with high miles, and basically both in brand new shape still. They get used very hard- the VW is used for camping offroad and heavy towing, and I both daily commute and race the Porsche.
