What I don't quite get is that much of the European car industry is owned or part owned by US companies, and yet they don't seem to learn anything from their European subsidiaries in terms of ergonomics or quality.
I think that people like Ford simply allow their European brands like Jaguar and Volvo to be marketed as their premier brands.
I still work for a US company and until last year worked for a US functional director, her boss was only two steps down from the executive council of the whole company and so pretty high falutin', and yet, one day the details of my car showed up on a travel report and this high up mistook this as a car rental. I got a sharp rebuke from them along the lines of "booking an upscale car like a Volvo C70 Convertible is against company rental policy, please amend it immediately". In actual fact my car appeared on the report because it was a booking for valet parking at Heathrow and they were a bit embarrased when I said "It's not a rental car, it's my car that I bought with my own money". However, after that I had to put up with remarks from US colleagues about being paid too much
Strange isn't it. A car that is no big deal over here seems to be thought of much more highly in the US