Did the company building this get their moneys worth when it comes to lessons learned?
Definitely not a problem with all cars, but the better built cars are more expensive.
I want to say "you get what you pay for", but at the same time I know nowadays there are a lot of products (e.g. electrical tools) where the brand is bought up and the new owner makes big cost cutting measures to maximize their profit margin, the money coming from "brand inertia", that is, a brand is known for being good for a couple years after they start reducing quality and durability.
I could also bring a lot of counterexamples to your second paragrah (e.g.: many german cars).
An example from the world of home appliances, Bosch/Siemens have been using the same drum design for a decade, before production was moved from Poland/Spain to China, likely for cost cutting measures.
The Chinese made machines (same internal design, new model - they always do that, with a facelift and maybe new electronics) had a very high bearing and spider failure rate.
They switched the alloy supplier. Makes sense, why import it from the EU. Either they knew it was lower quality, or were duped, but anyway, their product quality took a massive dive because of a seemingly simple to produce part.