
Made in Japan Ain't What It Was - akg_67
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-04/detroit-underestimated-japan-lexus-is-doing-the-same-to-china-igklj2sw
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Htsthbjig
I lived for 5 years or so in China and some years in Korea and Japan (and US).
I am European.

I believe this piece is total non sense.

Japan is not what it used to be because they are getting older and older and
because they have accumulated so much debt, but their products are as good as
ever.

The country is extremely depressed if you talk with the people living there.
With Abenomics and all the financial repression people get poorer every day.
Their savings evaporate, future is dark.

On the other side, China economic boom made poor people feel great about the
future. You could sense optimism whenever you were.

But in my opinion, China was(and is) a big bubble. Smart money wants to get
out of China as soon as they can and need a greater fool to buy their
investments. Smart money controls Bloomberg like a Puppeteer a puppet.

~~~
bostonpete
> Smart money controls Bloomberg like a Puppeteer a puppet.

I don't know much about Bloomberg -- is there evidence out there that backs up
this sentiment or is it just derived from a sort of "the-powerful-are-all-in-
cohoots" cynicism?

~~~
qnaal
they all have access to way better information than we can easily get

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pluma
On a related note: as a non-American who is therefore missing out on the
patriotism, the label "made in the USA" doesn't inspire any confidence in me
-- at least for clothing and apparel.

My most recent example of this would be a not-cheap messenger bag that had
problems both in terms of quality of the materials used (e.g. cheap zippers)
as well as the manufacturing quality (e.g. the zippers weren't sewn on
properly and would frequently jam) -- even the design had problems (e.g. a
magnet covered by fabric in a place where it would be exposed to so much
friction during everyday use the fabric wore out within one month or so).

~~~
SwellJoe
I'm from the US, and I don't have any confidence in the quality of products
made in the USA. It was always a running joke with my dad that something must
have been made in the USA if it failed catastrophically or in dangerous ways
almost immediately after purchase (because my family had a run of buying
hilariously bad/dangerous products that happened to be made in the USA).

I avoided American made cars, and chose Japanese manufactured cars, for most
of my life because of my personal bias and mistrust of American car quality.
I've recently, in the past few years, begun to accept that Ford makes a decent
vehicle (and have owned a motorhome built on a Ford chassis, and now own a big
Ford diesel pickup truck, and have been quite satisfied with both). But, even
now, I don't think I would give a "home team" advantage to American products.
I definitely don't assume they're higher quality on that basis. I still prefer
American products if I'm choosing between Chinese and American made, but
mostly because I have a reasonable expectation that the American made product
had some human rights protections for the workers making the product. There
_are_ well-made American products, but it's rarely a mass-produced consumer
good.

~~~
melted
A lot of Japanese cars are made in the USA. A lot of US cars, on the other
hand, are made in Mexico.

~~~
SwellJoe
That's true. The last car I bought new was a Nissan 350Z; part of the appeal
was that it is one of the few remaining Nissan automobiles sold in the US that
are wholly assembled in Japan, and imported to the US. I opted not to buy
another Toyota after not really loving the Celica I owned for a few years, nor
being impressed by my dad's Camry; most Toyotas are built in the US.

Both of the Ford vehicles I've owned were manufactured in Kentucky. I believe
all of the Ford trucks are US-made, but certainly the big ones are. Though I
wouldn't really have a problem buying made-in-Mexico products; the working
conditions aren't ideal in Mexico, but they aren't comparable to China, in
terms of human rights violations.

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vanilla-almond
In the UK, Japanese cars still have a good reputation for being practical and
reliable. Other brands tend to occupy the more luxury or premium end of the
scale in the minds of consumers. But as this survey shows, these more
expenisve cars aren't necessarily more reliable. A survey of 50,000 UK car
owners from earlier this year found Japanese cars the most dependable

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32332210](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32332210)

Edit: just to add, this is a good article from April 2013 about Japanese
companies that once dominated consumer electronics. One of these companies,
Hitachi has withdrawn from the conumer market and returned to its core
business of heavy engineering e.g. high-speed trains (new high speed trains
for the UK rail system are currently being built by Hitachi)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
asia-21992700](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21992700)

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sotojuan
I wonder if this is true in clothing. Upscale Japanese clothing is known to be
some of the most well constructed (and expensive) out there. Particularly,
Japanese denim is highly regarded. The reasons for this is because these
clothes are usually made by hand by experts tailors or at least well trained
ones, but the reputation might have something to do with it too.

> Consider luxury goods makers: Investors don't buy their stock because
> they've got cool labels, but because their brands allow them to charge
> higher prices and earn better margins.

True. For example, I see some Japanese clothing brands price a button up shirt
in the 200s, sometimes more, but they always sell out (to be fair, they
usually make few of those shirts). European brands of similar qualities
usually don't make it to that price and if they do, they rarely seem sell as
much.

There are always exceptions and there are always brands that take advantage of
Japan's reputation, just like when "Made in Italy" means "made as poorly as in
a cheap sweatshop in China but in Italy". Overall, though, I haven't noticed
any complaints in the clothing forums I visit. Perhaps a drop in quality is
imminent in middle and upper-middle tier brands, not the upscale ones.

I'd be interested in seeing the margins for upscale luxury clothing,
particularly men's.

~~~
ryuker16
The only mainstream Japanese clothing brand in the USA is Uniqlo which is H&M
quality....Denim gets sold online but that's about it. We could use some more
Muji!

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alricb
Bit of nonsense there:

> Yamamoto [president of Lexus] should heed what his local peers are doing,
> and look for ways to move more production offshore. As Apple demonstrates, a
> widely dispersed supply chain can be quite consistent with premium branding.

Cars and consumer electronics are completely different. Apple products are
made of chips made in huge fabs, LCDs made in special factories, PCBs
populated by machines, and a bit of special sauce here and there (Aluminium
casings, gorilla glass, etc.)

Car manufacturing is just much heavier, just like the products.

~~~
NamTaf
How do you think cars are made?

edit: I'm not suggesting you're wrong in saying that the premise of the
article is bad, but I'm surprised by your argument between phones and cars.

~~~
alricb
Cars are made with stamping presses and assembly lines; you also need a
foundry to cast the engine blocks. All these things are expensive and take
quite a while to set up.

OTOH, pick and place machines are fairly cheap and can be installed quickly;
the R&D to make a phone is huge, but once you're done you can set up
production almost anywhere in relatively little time. Obviously it'll be
easier if you're close to your PCB and plastic suppliers.

~~~
NamTaf
Apple are using precision optics to select the parts with the right machining
tolerances to fit together to minimise interface issues. Those parts are
machined to very tight tolerances in comparison to a car.

I feel like you're trivialising the complexities of a phone production line.

~~~
alricb
No, I'm just saying that large-scale car factories are bigger, louder and
takes up more space than consumer electronics factories. Apple does invest
quite a bit in its production facilities, but most other manufacturers of
consumer electronics don't.

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seanmcdirmid
Toyota in China (made in China) is crap compared to Toyota everywhere else.
One thing: the factories don't invest much in automation given cheap labor
costs. But a robot is going to be much more precise than a human, so the
resulting product shows many more imperfections.

I wouldn't be surprised if the data on quality in China is incredibly fudged.
China isn't known for releasing great accurate statistics.

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gesman
Not so fast. Car manufacturing is a different beast. Japan made consumer goods
are very decent quality still.

Then of course when 95% of crap around is from China - its not that difficult
to stand out.

And i'd rather pay a premium for Japanese made product than to pay for China
made junk same price as if it was made in USA.

~~~
chillacy
> There was a time when U.S. manufacturers looked down on their Japanese
> rivals as purveyors of cheap, low-quality knockoffs. That 1960s conventional
> wisdom is taught these days in business schools as one of history's most
> glaring examples of corporate hubris.

Aren't you just falling into the same assumption? Japan's auto industry was
known for making "junk" for awhile (toyota reverse engineered chrystler models
of the time), then they really took off and built a reputation for quality.
The point of the article is that the same may be happening again, just
substitute japan for china and the US for japan. History rhymes.

~~~
gesman
I just accepted a job offer to relocate myself to USA, CA, SF.

Renting a car for now. First month was Chevrolet. Lowest life piece of junk
ever driven. Eats gas really well but refuses to accelerate without
counseling.

Back where i live I owned Chrysler 300S, 4WD, 5.7L, v8. Best car ever driven.

Bottom line - only high end american cars are decent. And seriously well
built. Anything below that is a wall-mart-ish compromise.

Now i renting Kia Soul. Ugliest looking vehicle ever driven.

Yet: Consumes fuel like a bicycle, leaves all local "coolios" behind on HWY
280 like a charm. Asians do have a sense to build a lovely cars today if you
can live with occasional weirdness. Foundation is good.

Having said that - asian-built stuff in consumer space is hit and miss giving
75% to miss.

I used to do professional photography. That's where the camera cost $8K - just
the body. Top notch quality.

Top notch performance.

Top notch reliability.

It was - Canon 1-class.

Guess where it was made in?

Hint: 5-letter country, and the first letter is not "C".

~~~
chillacy
You're right (insofar as you've simply stated your opinions and can't be wrong
about your opinions) but beyond that I don't know what to say. Your reply
didn't address my comment _at all_, which was a reference to the situation in
the past with a hint that things change and the future could be different.
You're just telling me the situation today, which I'm asserting was not the
situation in 1950, and will likely not be the situation in 2050.

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umutisik
"The quality of Japanese cars sold in the U.S. fell below the industry average
this year, trailing Korean and European models, according to J.D. Power."

Consumer reports thinks that Toyota (and Lexus) and Honda make top quality
cars for their price points. The average Japanese car may be of lower quality
than the average European car but this doesn't mean any standards are eroding.
I am not sure how you get from this, Takata, and one crooked building to how
they are not what they used to be and should send more work offshore.

Not every company can be Apple and most industries don't have high margins. I
think Japan should stick to what it does best and outsource as little as
possible -- but try to improve the quality of their industrial design. The
weaker Yen is an attempt to make Japan competitive in this model.

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titomc
I drive a Nissan because I trust it more than an American made car in terms of
reliability. I have had several experiences from my friends who drive an
American made car. The recent Chrylser exploit nailed it. This article smells
like an aptly timed smear campaign coming from an American mediahouse.

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nextos
This is somehow paradoxical. Items such as fine clothing are thought to be of
much better quality if they come from Japan:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240529702045424045771572...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204542404577157290201608630)

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-japan-copied-
americ...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-japan-copied-american-
culture-and-made-it-better-180950189/?no-ist)

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a_bonobo
>Cars that are made in China have a lower fault rate than those in the U.S.,
according to J.D. Power

I looked at the J. D. Power assessment [1] and they are IMHO hard to compare:

>The 2015 China Initial Quality Study (IQS) is based on evaluations from
21,707 owners of new vehicles purchased between October 2014 and June 2015.

>For 2015, the China IQS has been redesigned to include more specific
diagnostic questions around eight problem categories [snip]

Now if you look at the same report for the US [2] you'll notice that there's
no note of a redesigned questionnaire, which makes me doubt that you can
compare both results if they're not gathered the same way. The US report also
has four times as many participants (84k vs 21k) which may have skewed the
results. In fact, it's hard to gauge the methods in general, very little
detail.

In the end, the problems reported in the Chinese report aren't particularly
severe:

>Unpleasant interior smell/odor is the most frequently reported as well as the
most severe problem this year

I feel like that's an issue that doesn't have much to do with the car's actual
quality (and it's also relatively easy to fix/cheat). It doesn't appear in the
US report, which is weird - I'd expect the same brands to have the same
problems (or is differences in smell a cultural thing?)

[1]
[http://china.jdpower.com/sites/default/files/2015169_china_i...](http://china.jdpower.com/sites/default/files/2015169_china_iqs_pr_final.pdf)

[2]
[http://www.jdpower.com/sites/default/files/2015080_IQS.pdf](http://www.jdpower.com/sites/default/files/2015080_IQS.pdf)

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drited
The argument that low margins are an indicator of inability to charge higher
prices or declining brand strength doesn't hold water. Sony had had crappy
margins for a long time and the reasons relate more to competition (they don't
enjoy barriers to entry like Apple and have to pay up for marketing and R&D to
maintain their brand perception) and poor corporate governance (lack of
impetus to run the company efficiently) than an ability to charge high prices
and/or a decline in brand quality.

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sengork
Korea is the new (or another?) Japan when it comes to quality of goods.

~~~
bigger_cheese
Anecdotally I dispute this. I used to drive a 2001 make Kia Rio (Korean car) I
had many aggravating and expensive problems with it (power steering, Clutch
and finally gearbox) It had a moderate amount of KM's on it but not excessive.
For first 7 years I had no problem but after that every six months something
seemed to go wrong with it.

I now have a Toyota Yarris it is about to reach 4 year old mark so far no
problems.

~~~
Scuds
2001 is fourteen years ago and Hyundai/Kia have been making dramatic strides
in design and quality since then.

Reputations going back 15 - 30 years have little bearing on what's on the lot
new today, this is especially true for GM and Hyundai/Kia.

