Which is why back in the day, there were some car/washing machine/tool brands and models that seemed to last forever. Whereas now the current models last exactly their warranty/leasing period.
Edit: Other manufacturers do this, too. But for them, it's often coming from the other side of the reliability curve, so they are improving, the ones that were better back then are getting worse.
Many German manufacturers (esp. the "premium" ones) don't build for people. They build mostly cars that get leased as company cars. So price isn't that much of an issue, longevity beyond the 4 year leasing term isn't a problem, excessive maintenance isn't a problem since it'll be included in the lease. Oh, and the trunk is just for a laptop bag and the overnight clothes for that one passenger anyways, so nobody cares it's impractically small.
Also, from what I know, design cycles for German cars are relatively long. A model won't just be changed, at least not once per year (as USians seem to expect to the dismay of German manufacturers). While this is great for cost-optimizing the manufacturing process and might be nice because replacement parts are easier to find, this has a downside: Japanese car makers practice continuous improvement, meaning that a change can go in at any time, as long as it seems advantageous. So maybe they learn more quickly from their past mistakes and overall build a more solid engineering experience through this continuous fiddling...