- Germany’s car industry was once recognized around the world for its high-quality, innovative internal combustion engine cars. But things have changed since then.
- The industry is facing a range of issues, from regulation to macroeconomics, China and EVs.
- Issues in the automotive sector may also have spill over effects onto the wider German economy, which has been struggling for some time now.
Sounds about right. Most of the Japanese manufacturers have had to put a higher amount of effort on reliability, in large part due to Toyota’s amazingly strenuous testing of reliability before they even consider dropping a new product on the market. As a bit of a bonus to that, once reliability was upped, making more sporty cars could be achieved because you had the budget to change around the driving dynamics of a car without making it inherently unreliable. The Miata is probably the best example of this, as while each generations drivetrain usually isn’t too special (outside of being high revving), it manages to handle well and be reliable while doing so.