The world’s major auto companies have been trying their best to improve product quality, enhance competitiveness and please consumers. In this kind of effort, there is an important part of the improvement of the quality of the interior.
Mr. Greg Bernas is the project executive manager of Toyota and an automotive engineer. His full-time job is to narrow the gap between the car interior and the car body, such as the gap between the door of the glove box and the instrument panel, or the gap between the lid of the cup holder and the central storage box, and so on. Today, these tiny details have become a very important indicator of the quality of automotive interiors. The gaps surrounding car audio, air conditioning, and door handles are becoming narrower and narrower, and are increasingly becoming the proof that car manufacturers claim to be of superior quality.
Bernas believes that as the overall quality gap between different brands of cars shrinks, car interiors become a new battleground for competition. The ultimate goal of this war is to fully match the various parts of the car’s interior to zero distance.
According to J.D.Power’s report, the car interior has been improved overall over the past five years. The problem report for the first three months after the purchase of a new car has dropped a lot, including annoying friction, or a less noticeable carpet. Between 1998 and 2003, the interior quality of American car brands improved the fastest, and the interior problems of 100 models dropped from 25.0% in 1998 to 17.2% last year. European car companies, the same indicator fell from 30.6% to 23.5%.
