The issue is not actual quality, it’s perceived quality. Chinese companies will fight decades of history and negative perception to reach top of the market consumers, a segment obsessed with perception.
- Japanese consumer goods were perceived as junk until the tipping point was reached, and then they were perceived as high-quality, easily equalling or surpassing Western goods. That took ~30 years (1950 to 1980, say). Older readers will recall the controversy over Akio Morita's (Morita-san being the founder of Sony) statements in the book "The Japan that can Say No" (edit: see [0]), which seems strangely prescient in the sense that it ignited a lot of (US) debate around dependence on foreign semiconductors.
- Then there was Taiwan, again, a 30 year cycle from about 1970 to 2000. Taiwan used to be known for cheap textiles, consumer dross, and suchlike. Not now...
My point is that the way to get better at products is to make them and make them and make them, and eventually an export-led country reaches a tipping point where the consumers flip over, and their perception changes.
Regardless of where they are perception wise, the long term lesson is clear - local manufacturers may ride the "quality" bandwagon for a while, but ultimately it's a losing strategy.
ICE cars, and manufacturers who don't gave an EV strategy are already inside their Kodak moment. It's fairly obvious that at some point "all" cars will be EV, just like "all" cameras are digital. Those who remain ICE only will fade into obscurity.
Unfortunately the politicians in the US right now are driving a narrative away from EVs (and Tesla has become semi-toxic). Which in turn affects local manufacturers planning near term sales. By the time the mood swings it may be hard to catch up.
Or maybe not. Maybe they come late to the party simply skipping a bunch of iterations, going straight to great, cheap, reliable. Time will tell I guess.
My last few cars have been Hyundai's. Unfortunately my driving habits don't allow full EV driving, but I did go with one of their (non-plugin) hybrids.
And almost all of my family has moved to Hyundai over time. The pure US car companies have been dumping out total crap for the longest time, it's an easy sale for almost anything else.