Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

Re:Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks by jeeeb on Friday April 21, 2023 @08:21PM (#35661994)

I’m suspicious of your claims in B. I can’t speak for every country you mentioned but in Australia (which constitutes most of the Oceania market), Ford/GM are not huge here at all. I also didn’t think I’ve ever heard people speak favourably of their reliability over Japanese brands. Tesla is perceived quite differently though and is gaining popularity.

Last year Ford sold about 1/4 the vehicles Toyota did (they were the 6th best selling brand in Australia), while GM/Tesla didn’t make the top 10 (https://www.racv.com.au/royalauto/transport/cars/australian-...).

Historically GM (under the Holden brand) and Ford were popular because they sold locally designed and manufactured v6 sedans and utes (like small pickup trucks). These cars were always perceived as Australian, not American.

They don’t locally manufacture anymore and have lost most of the Australian market.

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Re:Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks by deaddodo on Saturday April 22, 2023 @04:13PM (#35670498)

> They don’t locally manufacture anymore and have lost most of the Australian market.

Ok, sure. Rephrase that to "historically, as of a decade ago", if you like.

The point was more that the low-quality association was a more American phenomenon than anything. Internationally, they were either perceived fine or unpopular for other reasons.

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