This is a really intriguing question Hibiki. Thank you for bringing this up.

My gut tells me, yes, there's a degradation of the essence of car assembly that happens when an outfit is built on foreign soil. There's some cases studies that would bare out that that point of view - the Mercedes M-Klasse comes to mind.

However, there's much more evidence to the contrary suggesting that training, philosophies and techniques can be successfully transferred. Prime example of this is Toyota, whose cars consistently recieve accolades for their steadfast reliability regardless of model and point of origin.

An especially encouraging vote in the American worker has been made at their new San Antonio plant, where Toyota invested roughly $1.3 billion for the fabrication of the new Tundra pickup truck.

Which also raises the question - are vehicles like the Tundra really Japanese? Built by Americans with 75% domestic part content...