It’s definitely true in the States. Due in part to import costs, we don’t get many of the bare bones reliable models from pretty much anyone but Volkswagen. Other European brands either don’t manufacture in the States, or only manufacture a small range here. For example, Mercedes-Benz and BMW pretty much only manufacture SUVs here because we can’t get over huge ass cars, so it makes more sense to make those here since we buy so many. But our economy class market is too competitive for the good cheap Euro stuff. Additionally, Americans automatically assign European brands a level of prestige, which they want to maintain, so we get the fancy over-engineered stuff that costs a lot to maintain and fix.
Back in the 80s, 90s and early 00s, Japanese brands were indeed more reliable. That isn’t really the case any more. Not saying they aren’t reliable, but they aren’t the leaps and bounds better than anyone else anymore. But the marketing for Toyota (especially) as well as Honda really leans in on the reliability angle. It is kind of like how Volvo leans heavily on safety in their marketing material. Their cars are indeed safe, but I wouldn’t say they are much safer than any other similar category vehicle, but since their marketing pushes that topic so much laypersons equate them to safety.
When it comes to Japanese quality, it also really helps them that their used cars from their heyday are still around. You still see 90s era Camrys and Corollas once in a while, but not so much cars from other brands. So people see those, much more simple and thus more reliable vehicles and think modern Japanese today vehicles are way more reliable than everyone else.
The automotive press doesn’t help too much in dispelling the myth either. I was looking at the results of a recent quality survey. All you hear about from these lists are the rankings, but no one ever talks about the scores themselves. You don’t know if the rankings were really close or really far apart. These quality surveys list number of problems per 100 vehicles. The top ranking brands are usually around 140 or 130 problems per 100 vehicles (or 1.4 to 1.3 problems per each vehicle). In 2022 JD Power Initial Quality survey ranked Buick, Dodge and Chevy top 3 in their quality survey with Lexus down to 6th place and Toyota in 14th place.
So if you go just by the ranking, you’d think that Lexus has totally lost it in quality. Well they might have slipped a little, but when you look at the problems per vehicle, Lexus has 1.57 problems per vehicle, while the top ranking Buick brand had 1.39 prblems per vehicle. That’s pretty darn close even though the ranking for Lexus is way further down the list. The industry average is 1.80 problems per vehicle so that might go to show you how the top ranking brands are not that much better than average.
I also don’t think the domestic brands get the credit they deserve for their quality. They are typically right up there with the Japanese brands in terms of quality these days, but all everyone talks about is how their uncle’s 1984 Camaro had a window motor issue and then an alternator problem and then a bad diff.
Toyota was more or less forced to start building cars in the US in the early eighties and did so in an unlikely joint venture with General Motors. GM was very interested in learning how Toyota build their cars. Bottom line: the Toyota Production System or TPS is mostly a way of management thinking that is completely different from the way most companies in the world manage people.
It is based on trusting employees, enforcing employees by training them, allowing employees to report errors as soon as possible, viewing the production proces as a manager with your own senses, understanding the production proces, truly following a vision and more.
Toyota actually does what most managers learn in management schools but don’t practice. Most managers outside Toyota want to be a boss and not a leader. But Toyota wants leaders that are being followed by employees based on intrinsic values.
Interestingly, the Toyota Production System is heavily influenced by the Training Within Industry program developed by the US Army during WWII and taught in post-war Japan by the US. And statistician W. Edwards Demming who showed Japan what true PDCA looks like.
Although an initial success, the production plant ultimately stopped operating. It was purchased by Tesla, and AFAIK, as of today Teslas are being build in the same plant in Fremont. But I highly doubt TPS is used to build Teslas.