If a car: last longer, needs fewer repairs, is more fuel efficient, and resells for more, it could be much cheaper per mile.
Quality seems to be decreasing. I found many similar stories: https://www.newsweek.com/new-vehicle-quality-plummets-wake-p...
This is a drum that mass media beats every few years because it’s low hanging fruit.
It all comes down to the survivorship bias. In 10 years, we’re going to see a lot of these currently-new cars and admire how many of them are still on the road. In reality, the lemons were weeded out, poorer-selling models were cut and forgotten, and what is left is solidly in the middle of the bathtub curve[0].
> Compared to the 2021 IQS results, the 2022 version say an 11 percent increase in problems per 100 (PP100) vehicles, which is 18 PP100 worse than last year. That moves the needle to an average of 180 PP100 across the industry.