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Generally speaking Toyota is conservative in terms of rolling out new technologies and sticks with what's proven. For example the base Camry has a 2.5L engine a

Generally speaking Toyota is conservative in terms of rolling out new technologies and sticks with what's proven. For example the base Camry has a 2.5L engine and 8 speed auto transmission and the base Accord a 1.5 turbo and 10 speed auto. Toyota also goes more in depth terms of QA and testing on individual parts than others. From an article on the Toyota - BMW Supra/M4 collaboration, "...BMW couldn’t believe how extensive some of our quality and efficiency studies were as parts came into shape one by one. We would take every bit down to a fastener or rivet, and put it through our stringent quality control and a dozen other testing, we’d ship thousands of parts back to Japan for analysis. That is normal to us." http://club4ag.com/chief-engineer-tetsuya-tada-reveals-the-a90-supra-through-a-viewpoint-of-joint-development-with-bmw/ http://club4ag.com/chief-engineer-tetsuya-tada-reveals-the-a...

antisthenes 7y ago
You know how rigorous it is when even the Germans are surprised.
- jcims 7y ago
  For performance/handling yes, for reliability not so much.
  - jackhack 7y ago
    This has been my experience with German cars (Mercedes, BMW) precisely : They are great to drive, but terrible to own.
tdurden 7y ago
> From an article on the Toyota - BMW Supra/M4 collaboration I think you mean Z4
cardiffspaceman 7y ago
That article seems to be more balanced shall we say, in terms of what was normal for which team. Toyota's engineering seems to be closer to production while BMW's seems to be closer to design. * I almost started to think if they had an infinite budget funding to the task of design. * And it seemed like the opinion from Toyota was that Toyota has a body style in mind at first but BMW lets the body style be influenced its contents. BMW's fundamental difference in approach was that they wanted to design a package, and from there they would naturally evolve a shape and size of the body from that packaging, a functionally oriented goal. ... Our company (Toyota) with my tenure and experience, the focus was always design elements being the priority. We would first spend a lot of time on the shape and appeal of the car from visual perspective ... But let the article speak for itself. I kept my quotes short.
- rasz 7y ago
  It might of changed directions recently. 2020 BMW 2 Series is a series of cut&paste design cues from 2019 Toyota Supra.

antisthenes 7y ago

You know how rigorous it is when even the Germans are surprised.

jcims 7y ago
For performance/handling yes, for reliability not so much.
- jackhack 7y ago
  This has been my experience with German cars (Mercedes, BMW) precisely : They are great to drive, but terrible to own.

tdurden 7y ago

> From an article on the Toyota - BMW Supra/M4 collaboration I think you mean Z4

cardiffspaceman 7y ago

That article seems to be more balanced shall we say, in terms of what was normal for which team. Toyota's engineering seems to be closer to production while BMW's seems to be closer to design. * I almost started to think if they had an infinite budget funding to the task of design. * And it seemed like the opinion from Toyota was that Toyota has a body style in mind at first but BMW lets the body style be influenced its contents. BMW's fundamental difference in approach was that they wanted to design a package, and from there they would naturally evolve a shape and size of the body from that packaging, a functionally oriented goal. ... Our company (Toyota) with my tenure and experience, the focus was always design elements being the priority. We would first spend a lot of time on the shape and appeal of the car from visual perspective ... But let the article speak for itself. I kept my quotes short.

rasz 7y ago
It might of changed directions recently. 2020 BMW 2 Series is a series of cut&paste design cues from 2019 Toyota Supra.