The hard bit isn't the process per se, it's executing the process when it would otherwise be easier not to.

Or maybe they have different approach to beta testing, see say Zelda come out basically flawless and how say Betshesda or many others can deliver their stuff (beta testing months after release with fixes have 1000+ rather basic items).

Basically, getting to your last sentence: you have the wrong threat model. Making "cars better" is great if what a "car" is doesn't change. But what the market wants is "better cars".

The Japanese company sent them 3 bags of parts noting: The bag with the full quantity is made to match the provided blueprint, the other two bags contain 1/10th as many parts which are either larger or smaller as requested. May we ask what the purpose of these other parts is?

When they started measuring the parts, they were all identical --- part-way through, they decided that their micrometer must be broken and sent for another --- it revealed that all parts where _exactly_ the right size per the specifications of the drawing.

It doesn’t mean a thing to have a “stop everything” lever if your workforce doesn’t want to pull it because they don’t give a flying fuck if they ship a shoddy car.

It’s a story told again and again with tons of Japanese products.

What's especially annoying is that the high end European cars are ostensibly better made... much more expensive materials, more attention to detail (better rustproofing, cable organization, etc.). They probably actually last longer on average if you maintain them well, but they just have unexpected parts failures extremely often.

When my Nissan Sentra got totaled by a drunk driver I looked at all the similar cars from both American and Japanese companies. The first thing I noticed was that the Japanese cars were comfortable--I had plenty of leg room, by head didn't hit the roof, the seats weren't too narrow, and the steering wheel wasn't too close.

The American cars were all more cramped. And I don't mean cramped just in ways that I could fix if I would have just got my act together and lost weight. No, they were also cramped because I was too tall for them.

I even took a look at American mid-sized cars and they too were apparently not meant for people over 6 ft.

It was kind of funny. The Japanese are a relatively small people. I'd be around 97th percentile on height there. So how come they are so much better at making cars that accommodate tall people?

Anyway, I ended up with a Honda Civic. 11 years later it developed a problem that my local dealer (Seattle Honda) just could not reproduce or diagnose from my description and it was again time for a new car. (From later discussion on a car forum on the net, it seems like the problem was a bad ECU).

That was around when SUVs were getting really popular, and I decided to have a look. Again, Japan for the win. Even though the American SUVs I looked at were overall much bigger cars than the Honda CR-V, only the CR-V had the head and leg room I needed.

I ended up with a CR-V. That worked so well that when that lease was up I leased another, and then another when that lease was up. Then I remembered that I had only leased that first one so that if I didn't like the form factor it would be easy to switch back to a sedan, and so when that third lease was up bought a new 2006 CR-V and still drive that now.

So probably the highest complexity of the more premium platforms and features is bringing the reliability down for BMW, unsurprisingly (a v8 engine probably would fail earlier than a simple 3-cylinder engine)

Toyota has partnered with Mazda as well - for example, there was Mazda 2 rebadged as a Toyota Yaris for a few years.

I also have an Audi A4 and S4. Something is always breaking on them, but they are very enjoyable to drive compared to the Celica. It has such terrible torque steer that we avoid driving it in any kind of rain. With an open diff, it's essentially a one wheel drive vehicle on any kind of low traction surface. Specifically, the front left wheel.