Toyota's entire market is convincing people (the bulk of whom will trade in in a few years) that a Camry/4Runner/Sienna is worth substantially more than an Altima/Tahoe/Pacifica based on a bunch of promises about reliability after 150k that the statistical first owner will never see (spare us all the anecdote about your relative who trades in at 300k on the dot, I have one of those too). If robotaxi fleets become the game then Toyota is gonna lose because commercial buyers who buy us a fleet of whatever has the lowest all things included TCO over 3/5/10yr tend to buy a hell of a lot of Chrysler 200s, Nissan Sentras, Chevy Colorados, Chrysler Pacificas, Ford Transit Connects, and other not so premium vehicles.
If FSD tech is viable in the next 20yr I'd be very surprised if the reality of what that will do to Toyota's business doesn't keep them from going all in enough to bring a viable version to market early enough to get a good market share at it.
I'd expect the Toyota methodology to trickle down.
But brands that start with T and end with A can do no wrong on the white collar parts of the internet so Toyota gets a pass.
Last I checked Nissan and Mitsubishi (though they're on the up and up lately) were Japanese. The people of the Camry tax brackets don't exactly hold them in high regard.
1. They get desperate people to buy specific four door vechicles, and don't even have to worrry maintance costs.
1.5 Driver pays for fuel.
2. They don't pay for insurance.
3. They don't have to pay for liability.
4. They pay a Independant Contractor a percent of sales.
5. Most countries have a burgeoning sector of low skill help whom that are begrudgingly copacetic with being exploited. (This I find this very sad, especially in a country I used to love. For decades there wasen't a lot of takers for shit jobs. Now there's a line.)
Otherwise, it's true that new cars from many different brands are reliable enough nowadays, even brands that used to be bad like Hyundai (unless you want to buy a car and keep it forever). But used car sales far outstrip new car sales.
You never see a Sienna getting loaded with bags of concrete at Home Depot. Can't say that about a Town and Country. You never see a family of 5 pile out of a (newish) Corrla. Can't say that about an Altima. You never see a 4Runner towing something way too big. Can't say that about a Tahoe.
Toyotas sell for a premium used because they get sold to "premium" customers who keep them nice.
If Toyota financed the people Chryler and Nissan would finance (insert neggity joke) then in 20yr you would see all the upper middle class HN types shitting all over Toyota because Toyota would be the poor people car. You'd see them in all sorts of states of disrepair and neglect and they would be stereotypes as unreliable, after all why else would they be driving around on 3/4cyl?
I can't believe I'm defending Chrysler and Nissan but the blind Toyota worship is just that, blind worship. Most of their niceness comes from people keeping them nice. The real world edge between manufacturers is very, very slim.
In end of life they are no better or worse than anything else that's been treated the way they have (VW's regularly scheduled electrical fires notwithstanding)
It's because they are well engineered.
When a cheaper less reliable car is in the garage being repaired it's not just about the cost of repair but also the opportunity cost of lost revenue.
Pretty much every minivan fleet in the US runs on Pacificas and Transit connects. Small trucks are always the Colorado.
Of course the cabbies love their Priuses but they only begrudgingly switched after the supply of ex-cop crown vics dried up.
Regardless, there is no other car company doing anything like the Mirai.