Not all Japanese manufactures have great quality. Nissan/Infiniti had transmissions that were guaranteed to fail.

When people say "Japanese cars are high quality", they usually mean "Toyota and Honda". I agree it's weird. Though Nissan isn't really considered worse than GM or something in that range -- they're just pretty middle of the road.

> Toyotas are always cheaper than the alternative

From my last time shopping they weren't the cheaper at purchase time, but I do agree that they're reliable and I haven't spent a lot of money for repair so far, and when I do the parts aren't very expensive nor difficult to find.

So I'd say the total cost of ownership is likely cheaper than the alternative, and they also hold their value well compared to other brands.

I don't think this includes any of the Chinese brands. They obviously have a cheaper cost base, arguably lower quality, and the government is keen to get more global market penetration so they're going to be a lot more competitive.

wouldnt hold your breathe.. they've been claiming solid state has been around the corner since like 2010

I don't recall them ever saying it was right around the corner.

Rather around the early-mid 2020s which has been impacted by COVID.

I am always reluctant to bet against Toyota since they have a long history of delivering.

Apparently BYD will be releasing one of its models with a sodium ion solid-state battery this year. That is, it's verified and working and ready to ship.

First source link I could find on google. https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/byd-may-launch-first-sodium...

Your link says "may" not "will", and is from December last year.

I shall keep my fingers crossed that it does happen, but with no "They're actively being manufactured right now" news articles, I'm not hopeful that they'll be available to buy in the next two months.

Well, he's also jump-started all of car electrification. I agree FSD is bad, but unless you paid for it, it's a weird thing to focus on given the bigger picture impact Tesla and Musk have had.

Not sure how Toyota is better in any regard. The timeline has always been 3 to 4 years away and has been previously vaporware.

On top of that they're lobbying hard spending a lot of money against government incentives against fossil fuels and pollution standards.

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/14/toyota-shareholder-revo....

> Toyota has lobbied against strict fuel efficiency standards in Australia and worldwide and is one of the top three funders of lobbyists against 100% battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Various Toyota executives have sent mixed messages about the future ascendency of hydrogen-powered cars, the efficacy of mild hybrids vs. BEVs, and a future BEV strategy based on solid-state batteries. None of these technologies have proven their worth yet, and I wonder if these messages are merely a ploy for Toyota to maintain its current hybrid vehicle (HEV) dominance and profit margins.

“It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is almost always right”

Mark Twain

And there is promising the moon and delivering a tennis ball, and that years late...

I've got plenty of gripes with Musk -- not the least of which are Tesla's marketing of assistive driving technologies, which the folks there had to know would be misleading.

I think this is somewhat unfair, though: that $10k is for a software unlock. Battery tech is hardware. Toyota can't charge extra for advanced batteries before said batteries are ready for mass production, for obvious reasons -- so they didn't really have the opportunity to engage in this kind of broken promise.

Lexus is Toyota. In Japan, they are branded as Toyota, hood symbol and all. They just market them differently in the West.

The same thing goes for the Acura / Honda distinction.

Below I'll use "Lexus" to mean those cars that get branded that way when marketed is the West and "Toyota" to mean to the ones that get branded "Toyota" in the West. I'll use "the company" when referring to Toyota the company rather than non-Lexus cars the company makes.

I'm curious if there is any difference within the company other than branding.

Are they built at the same factories, or are there separate factories for Lexus?

Are there separate engineering and/or design organizations for Lexus and Toyota that independently hire engineers and/or designers, or are engineers and/or designers hired by the company and work on whatever mix of Lexus and Toyota projects that the company wants to assign them to?

Anecdote:

Friend of my had a Lexus IS220 (in Europe). His rear bumper got torn off.

Next day he arrive at work. We all go and look at the damage. And indeed, no bumper. You could see the frame rails.

And what was stamped on the frame rails? That's right. Toyota.

So I knew it was owned by the same, I didn't realize it was marketed differently. That's interesting to know.

The Lexus brand was created to sell Americans expensive Toyotas, because when they entered the market there was an inherent perception of Japanese cars as cheap.

Internationally a bunch of cars that have a Lexus badge in America have a Toyota badge on them.

Well yeah, Lexus are Toyotas? It’s the brand name Toyota uses for their luxury cars

Yeah, I'm aware, though I've heard good things about the reliability of Lexus cars too. In all fairness, Lexus feels like the affordable Luxury car when you consider the price of other luxury cars.

Toyota and Lexus are the same company. Much as Infiniti is a division of Nissan and Acura is a division of Honda. In fact, the renowned original Acura NSX is the Honda NSX in much of the rest of the world.

Lexus is a Toyota brand... Just like, for example, Audi and VW share technologies and components.

And the reverse is true.