I say the Koreans have the leg up, right now, because they have made the most gain in public confidence, initial quality, and sales volume, in contrast to their competitors.As their rise to this level has not been meteoric, but stable, consistent and growing. Most of others have been falling back, although not for the same reasons.Among the Japanese, Toyota has had some setbacks, most recently with the stumbling launch of their Tundra full-size pickup. Toyota realized they had to offer rebates to get the target buyers interested as the Tundra's price point was $1,800 to $3,300 higher than the immediate competition, despite differences in content packaging. Embarassing engine failures due to oil starvation also contributed to their problems of late.Nissan, Subaru, Mazda and Suzuki have made modest gains in market share, principally due to strides in model diversity and increases in quality. Mitsubishi and Isuzu have had incredible losses in sales volume, market share, especially Izusu. They now offer only one product, a thinly disguised version of the Chevrolet Colorado pickup, which has mediocre appeal according to several consumer surveys.As for the Europeans,Mercedes-Benz, which until a few years ago, was the darling of the consumer surveys, has fallen on bad times due some embarassing quality issues steming from, in my opinion, packing too much unwanted technology into their cars. The German carmakers, of late, have been condensing the myriad of functions available in their cars into unnecessary complicated driver interfaces, such as BMW's I-Drive. Such devices meant to improve driver operation, often frustrate even the most patient among us. Just to do simple tasks such as changing the temperature of the climate control, or getting your favorite radio station can waste unnecessary minutes poring over seemimgly endless pages in the drivers manuals.Volkswagen continues to struggle in America, despite much marketing success in Europe.Jaguar, with the exception of its X-Type, sells well within its rather small demographic. They should not try to sell smaller cars here,perhaps they should modernize the S-Type and just drop the the X-Type, which has had quality issues ever since is was first offered in the U. S.
Of course, on the horizon are cars to be offered by the Chinese promising great value for their size and content. Time will tell. And the there's Mahindra, India's medium duty truck and tractor maker who will be selling a mid-sized pickup and a SUV here next year, both well-equipped and starting around $22K. Looks like our domestic car companies have even more headaches in store for them.