What Toyota really proved with the Prius, ironically, is that Americans have little appetite for high mileage vehicles -- in fact, are willing to buy one only when the stars align briefly and inexplicably to turn a car into a Hollywood-accredited emblem of personal enlightenment. To put it baldly, Toyota got lucky.
He continues bashing Toyota for the next few paragraphs (even as he says that they are cars of remarkable fortitude), then gets to the point:
As Edmunds recites in chapter and verse, Toyotas are far from being in a class by themselves in quality or value. A buyer who carefully, unemotionally weighs the trade-offs does not automatically end up owning a Toyota, or even a Japanese car -- though shoppers whose perceptions are a lagging indicator still treat Detroit products as automatically inferior.
As it happens, the 2007 Consumer Reports car guide came out about the same time as this article. What did Consumer Reports say? Of the cars from each manufacturer it tested, it recommeded 85% of the Toyotas, 54% of the Fords, 36% of GMs and 21% of Chryslers. So, one could argue that people aren't exactly acting reflexively when they prefer Toyotas. By the way, the guide also recommended 100% of the Hondas and (stunningly) 0%, yes that's 0% of the Mercedes-Benzs. Honda and Toyota are 7 of the top 10 CR picks.
We've been hearing for years about how the American cars are finally catching up to the Japanese and it's only these embedded biases that keep people from buying American again. Time and again, the assertions don't hold up.
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