Then again, it's been done before.

- 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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Japan_That_Can_Say_No

Yeah I still don't understand this argument. The only cars I ever hear of (in Europe) with issues are German or French cars (not all brands). (Don't see many American brands here).

Unless you live under a rock, China has more than worked around this, look at Volvo.

Where are you based that you hold this impression? Because globally BYD is perceived as having much better build quality than Tesla, rightly or wrongly.

just got an etron because my partner wanted a xpeng, guy is super happy in that xpeng and I gotta say, he's right