[Arragonis]

Apologies - I seem to be putting long posts in here...

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But appreciate the very significant difference between the Japanese going into Europe and the Japanese going into the US. In Europe, the Japanese were offering similiar-sized products to what European mfgs were producing, so they had to compete on price, quality, & service. In the US, they had that very underpopulated small car (and small pickup) niche waiting for them.

Yep - and they arrived in the US just as fuel costs started to rise too. People bought them to save money on petrol and then found the quality was far better than the domestic products they had stuck with for years.

They arrived in Europe just when domestic makers were starting to dump the smaller dealers in favour of the main dealer network. Those dealers were expected to disappear, instead they took up franchises for those funny looking chrome covered cars from Japan that never went wrong.

BTW WE helped them be better than we were too.

Just after WW2 Nissan approached Austin in Birmingham about making CKD (Completely Knocked Down - aka kits) versions of British cars to get their industry going - before WW2 the Japanese car industry was very primitive even for the times.

As a result of the deal, this automotive symbol of Britiain in the 1950s was actually made and sold in Japan :



However because of the resentment some Brits had against the Japanese (e.g. treatment of prisoners during WW2) they gave the visitors a very hard time.

The idea was that Nissan would start to make more and more parts locally but Austin would have to approve any part used for quality first. Because of the bad feeling the Austin engineers rejected most parts for the first 2-3 versions automatically until they were so perfect they couldn't be refused.

These parts were 2-3 times better than the ones being put onto cars in the UK which in turn made their cars more reliable and needing less maintenance over time. When the first cars were shipped back to the UK for inspection the management in the UK was amazed at the quality.

The theory goes that Nissan's engineers learned how to impose such high quality standards in mass manufacturing from this.

Also the engine in most Nissans until the Mid-1970s is quite similar to the B-series engine made by Austin - as used in the MGB.

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...a "back-to-the-original-point" summary: Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) has been around since the 1940's...
...and, THAT is simply another example of Detroits' "feet dragging", ie: never do MORE than the Government (or Common Sense) absolutely requires!

Not sure I buy into the "conspiracy" (e.g. oil owns the car industry) or "lazy" theories behind this - I think its just the technology becoming cheap and reliable enough to use.

The main duty of any corporation is to increase the capital and return of its investors. Any kind of technical advance is really only going to done for one of three reasons - legislation (e.g. emissions or FE standards), competition (we must have x because they have it or if we have it we are ahead and can sell more or at a higher price) or costs (including x replaces and is cheaper than y).

DI for diesels was around for a long time in commercial vehicles where it had improved FE and become reliable enough to make it viable in vehicles that cover hundreds of thousands of miles each year. Scaling that down to a car which maybe does max 50k miles a year (but more likely 10-20K) and making it work in faster revving car engines took quite a long time. There were also some promising blind-alleys like the PD system used by VW for a while.

DI for petrol is not a mature technology - yet. It will become commonplace on high end vehicles first and then move down to the common vehicle - just like Xenon headlights and ABS systems and EBD and stability control and even the in-car phone.