1w ago

Very Encouraging if correct. But hardly surprising.

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Don't know what exactly the survey asked, but "quality" wasn't the only consideration.
"Quality, security standards, value for money, uniqueness, design, advanced technology, authenticity, sustainability, fair production, status symbol" https://www.statista.com/page/Made-In-Country-Index
Was wondering why the USA was so high.
"2017"

- It’s too bad the guy that created the show is a total fucking bigoted asshole
  
  That certainly explains that one episode.

Honestly, kind of surprised the US is even on that list. For most things better quality is usually found elsewhere.
- Despite the crap labour and business practices, the US is an high wage economy. For non perishable goods, companies either manage to compete on quality or they sink because they can't compete on price.
- As someone living in the US, I almost always think products "Made in the USA" are pretty high quality. Trouble is almost nothing is made in the USA because almost everything is imported, largely from China or SE Asia.
  
  It's a common perception for sure, although I have to admit when I do find things that are actually "made in USA" I also find I am often disappointed by their quality. Tools for example, Made in USA often seems to reflect a lot of shitty cut corners and weak crappy materials. There's some good stuff too of course but it's certainly not a guarantee and I wouldn't even say it's the majority.
  Made in Japan or Made In Germany is usually a good bet but you'll pay a steep premium, meanwhile there are honestly some exceptionally well made and affordable tools coming out of China, you just have to know what specifically you're buying because of course there is also a lot of absolute crap.
  
  Craftsman was the absolute best until Sears went out of business and they sold the name.
  Being able to just walk into any Sears with a broken tool and walk out with a working one was amazing.
  My local Sears even had a display of the oldest tools that were traded in.
- The American companies obsessed with cutting costs generally don't manufacture in the US any more. Potential exception for the automobile industry, but these cars aren't really exported much to the rest of the world any more.
  Also worth noting that this is based on data from 2017. I would be happy to buy a pair of jeans made in America back then. Now, not so much.
- They've got good guitars
  
  Good cheese too (the ones that are actually cheese).
- Not just surprising, outright implausible

This chart is 8 years old.
- Yeah, anyone who dealt with German products outside of a few selected brands knows that quality had been nosediving for the past decade.
  Edit: also just checked. The statistic is provided by "Statista" who basically just scam people by aggregating statistics they take from other sources and then don't disclose their sources unless you pay extra. Furthermore the statistic wasn't repeated ever since, which makes it even more dubious as it should be trivial for a data aggregator to update such an index, unless the method and data are of low quality.
  
  Edit: also just checked. The statistic is provided by “Statista” who basically just scam people by aggregating statistics they take from other sources and then don’t disclose their sources unless you pay extra.
  They block access for anyone visiting from a GDPR area. Which should really tell you all you need to know about how they treat data.

Wtf how Scandinavia and Japan are not on top?
Funny thing about Germany, after all these years, quality differs a lot between west and former ussr ghetto. Knowing this saves lots of cash.
- Unless the east German product was made in the GDR, then it will probably outlive you. I have a table made in 60s east Germany and it's still in impeccable shape and will probably last longer than me
  
  Damn these translated abbriviations are tough. For me they were BRD and DDR
- Might be due to cars. Japan used to make affordable cars and that kinda painted expectations on some markets. Also correlates to Germany being high up, everyone knows German cars are good.
  
  At similar price Japanese cars were better for decades though. But Germany had Luxury cars that if you paid the extra price, Germany had the better car. AFAIK Germany never had a decidedly bad brand.
  UK Had Vauxhall, Italy had Alfa Romeo, and France had Simca. Those cars had about half the average life span of a VW, but Volvo used to top that rank even over luxury brands like Mercedes. In the 80's the average lifespan in Denmark of a Volvo was 22 years, compared to an average of 13!
  PS:
  ! is for exclamation mark, not factorial.

Funny that the EU is scores higher than 26 of its member states.
- Yeah, it could be made in Germany or in Bulgaria (no offense).
- Maybe because it's more about brand recognition than actual quality by country.
  I do however agree EU in general is pretty good, and I think that is because we have good regulation, that protects consumers.
  So you won't get some of the really bad stuff in EU you might find in USA, but USA also has good quality, it's just mixed in with lots of mediocre shit sold on false advertising.

I'm curious where the Netherlands stand. To me, a product made here is preferred for a lot of things. I'll trust the Germans to make cars and stuff but other than that...

UK, Italy and France above Finland and Norway 😋
In my experience Scandinavian production quality is higher quality than Germany on average, and Japan is on par.
Anyways, why this is encouraging IDK. Germany being #1 is hardly a surprise, they are probably the most known country for it.
USA is a mixed bag IMO, They generally make good tools, for instance DeWalt is American. But their cars are not so good, but Italy and France are worse. French cars have just about the worst reputation here.
- I don't think Italy is up there for the engineering side of things
  
  I go Italian with a lot of kitchen appliances. My Italian stainless steel frying pan is amazing. Pasta machine obviously. They also make some great shoes and leather products.
  I would never trust them with anything of equal or greater complexity to a bicycle.

GERMAN ENGINEERING IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD
- Engineering for repair is part of engineering that Germany has evidently forgotten.
- Until you (maybe not exactly you), a common folk without engineering school, try to repair it. Sheeeshh
  There's engineering and overengineering
- From the stuff I've looked at, it's often nonsensical. Doing stuff in unconventional ways for little apparent reason. Like, in BMWs example, you have to use a lift or jack up the car level to just check the transmission fluid; or the mostly-plastic cooling system which fails and results in the engine being ruined often. I've seen other weird engineering choices in electronics too (have done contract work for a German company).
  
  In my 335i the front differential goes THROUGH the oil pan
  Replacing the oil pan gasket required me to drop the entire subframe of the car
  And ya the water pump routinely goes every like 80000km. Designed to fail.
- good luck finding anything made in germany in germany though xD

I don't really trust in the "made in (country of ur choosing)" label. Lots of stuff in that product is still made in china 😕 For example with quick googling i found out there are no legal requirements for a product to be allowed to have Made in Germany label and even the guideline is only 45% of the products value added there or the product being assembled there.
It just feels like a big scam to me personally.
- Final assembly is also where the final quality control is. Generally it works fine, but I've heard that cheating is very common in USA, they put some part on a product made in China, but the part is made in USA, and then they print MADE IN USA on that.
  Most other places in the world, you can reasonably trust the label.
  
  There was an investigative video I watched recently (I wish I remember the source, sorry), and they said that designer products which are "Made in Italy" quite literally only needs something like sewing on a zipper, to make it so, despite the rest of the product being made in China.
  I recently ran into coffee that was a "Product of Canada", and I know damn well that coffee beans aren't grown here! At the very most, they could label it as "roasted in Canada" or "Packed in Canada", but "Product of Canada" is a flat out lie (and likely illegal in this context).
  I suspect a lot of "Made in" products are the same, but there are companies who are very transparent and will explain how their products are made, so I try to seek them out.
  
  Still i think if most of the materials and stuff is made in china, just assembling the stuff in different country does not change the fact that it's still made in china.
  I just read about a project one company in my country is doing. They just straight up said that there are not enough textile makers in Europe to change the manufacturing here. They do plan on changing most of the assembling to Europe but that does not make the stuff European in my books. It's a good start but the materials are still chinese.
  When we can make stuff without needing to import stuff from china we are at satisfactory level of manufacturing. Excluding materials that are actually impossible to make here.
- In the US a product only has to be 10 percent US made to be "made in the US". Also, when you import something into the US and export it again, it's "made in the US".
  
  Yep, that's exactly why i think it's a scam in a big scale. Sure it depends on the country how much value added or how much the product needs to be made in that country but it's always relativly little. Just selling the same china stuff with inflated prices to customers who think they are supporting local production of the goods.

I can't even remember the last time I saw anything that said "Made in Germany", apart from beer. I guess I'm not in the market for tanks or BMWs, but still
- Home appliances, pharmaceuticals and quite a few things related to engineering really, be that cars parts or something else entirely line tools or screws.
  But the most stuff is B2B so you don't get into contact much
- My vacuum cleaner is made in Germany. Super happy with it after one year. I also have a pretty sturdy German kitchen knife.
  Pretty sure some of my power tools are also German, but that's bought more on the basis of what I could find in flea markets than where it was produced.
- I got some Adidas stuff but those are definitely made somewhere in SE Asia. I thought Sennheiser might be one, but looks like their main factory is in Ireland, of all places.

As a Canadian I used to think oh good at least that's somewhat local when I saw the "made in USA" label. Now I'm like flip this upside down and replace on shelf so the next person doesn't waste their time

Counterpoint: Deutsche Bahn AG

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