I think he meant they trail Toyota and Nissan the way Chrysler does GM and Ford.
I'd say the only way they trail Nissan is in product diversity. Volume-wise, Honda has about double the sales of Nissan in the US.
You pretty much got what I meant.
Among the American brands for most of the past 50 years, Chrysler has always showed the most innovation and best engineering, but shoot themselves with high-then-low quality control and poor product choices (eg, clinging to the K-car 5 years too long). GM is at the other end, plodding along with constant mediocrity, but then leads in sales. Ford's kinda best of both worlds.
Among the Japanese brands, Honda is the engineering innovator that shoots themselves with shoddy interiors, lack of inspiration in styling, and poorer marketing. Toyota is the non-innovative but 900 pound gorilla that wins sales (actually, I would argue that Toyota has succeeded in BECOMING the next GM in every way). Nissan has kinda fallen from grace at times (and teetered on going out of business) but since Renault took them over their products have been very consistently impressive (and after what Renault did to AMC, I *never* thought I would be saying anything like that).