Well the big three, GM, Ford and Chrysler are having issues but that's their own fault imo. When it came time to compete the Japanese auto manufacturers called for their engineers, the American car companies called for their lobbyists! All my personal cars are "American" not sure that means anything with all the outsourcing etc going on. Meanwhile I own A shop that specializes in German cars. I could afford to drive A German car no problem. I have all the specialized tools and the knowledge required to repair them as well. I don't own one however as their reliability is abysmal.
I'm NOT making the claim that American engineering is superior. American cars are just simpler, less stuff to break. Last thing I wanna do after fixing Krautmobiles all day is have to deal with problems in my own vehicle!
In the electric car field companies like Tesla are definitely holding their own. It is my belief that electric cars will take up A huge chunk of the market in the next decade. In SOME markets electric cars make sense, in others not so much. Electric cars suffer in cold weather SO BAD, even the ones that use Lithium ion batteries. Reduced range, failure to start in some cases, nevertheless they are here to stay.
The hot setup for A sports car anymore is parallel hybrid technology IMO. Electric drive on the front wheels and gas power to the rear. That gives you the ability to use regenerative braking to help charge the batteries and the ability to "overdrive" the front wheels on turns, basically thrust vectoring. Also electrical machines, they are called that because they work as both A motor and generator, make their full torque throughout their RPM range. That way the electric motor can fill in the gaps in output left by the ICE engine in the back, sadly most hybrids don't go that route. The new Acura NSX and the BMW i8 do however. The new, mid engine Corvette is supposed to be setup like that in the future at some point as well.
I actually have A fair bit of experience with all makes and models however, as many of my customers have second cars that are American and Japanese. Let me tell you that the reliability of ALL car lines is going down! Just too much tech, there's always something to break once that car hits 100k or more, depressing. Honda/acura once the gold standard for reliability, are now having issues with burning oil and faulty transmissions. American cars are actually using quite A bit of tech sourced from Germany, to their detriment as far as reliability goes. It's come to the point where I have A hard time recommending A set of wheels to A customer who is looking to keep A vehicle long term. Their all turning into pieces of *******, from A reliability standpoint at least!
My order of reliability goes like this.
Japanese, though the gap has narrowed.
American, though we cant seem to get direct-fuel injected, stratified charge engines right. To be fair though Ford actually did on A couple of their engines.
European, I have the theory that in Europe owning A car is largely unnecessary due to the fact of them actually having decent public transport. A car is there is A decadence, not A necessity. The point I am making is that, from what I've seen, in the trenches every day, no one is doing it quite right!
