Study - Best Auto Plants For Quality All Outside Of the United States - Lowest Ranked Vehicles Built In U.S.

The latest J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) has just been released. Most of the press that results from this new report is a celebration of the brands and vehicles found to have the lowest owner-reported quality issues after 90 days of ownership. However, the J.D. Power report also includes quality awards for the plants that manufacture the vehicles we celebrate. This year, none of the top three plants serving the American car market with the highest initial quality scores are located inside of the United States. Rather, they are in China, Mexico, and Turkey.

“The fact that the top plants in each region are outside of the traditional areas of the U.S., Canada, Germany, Japan and Korea is a sign of just how global the auto industry has become,” said Doug Betts, president of the automotive division at J.D. Power. “China and Turkey have been represented in the study for less than 10 years, so to say this achievement is impressive is an understatement.”

Highest Quality Plant - GM
General Motors and its mandated-by-Chinese-law joint venture partner, SIAC, operate the plant found to have the highest initial quality. The Yantai Dongyue plant is located in the Eastern Chinese city of Yantai in Shandong province. A map view of the area shows it to be located across the Yellow Sea from Korea, about 75 miles from Seoul.

The plant builds a number of vehicles, notably the Buick Envision which General Motors imports to the United States. The Yantai Dongyue plant has now been on the quality podium for three years running. Its high quality ratings earned it a Silver Award for plant quality last year and a Bronze Award the previous year.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Toyota Plants Earn Awards For Quality
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Toluca plant in Mexico, which produces the Dodge Journey and Jeep Compass, and Toyota Motor Corp.’s TMMT Turkey plant located in Turkey, which produces the Toyota C-HR crossover, receive the Gold Plant Quality Award for the Americas and Europe/Africa regions, respectively.

By contrast to the high quality of the products built in China, Mexico, and Turkey, Tesla's vehicles, built primarily inside of the United States, ranked lowest in initial quality in the Study.

John Goreham is a life-long car nut and recovering engineer. John's focus areas are technology, safety, and green vehicles. In the 1990s, he was part of a team that built a solar-electric vehicle from scratch. His was the role of battery thermal control designer. For 20 years he applied his engineering and sales talents in the high tech world and published numerous articles in technical journals such as Chemical Processing Magazine. In 2008 he retired from that career to chase his dream of being an auto writer. In addition to Torque News, John's work has appeared in print in dozens of American newspapers and he provides reviews to many vehicle shopping sites. You can follow John on Twitter, and view his credentials at Linkedin

Top of page image courtesy of GM Media. J.D. Power IQS Chart courtesy of J.D. Power