I wouldn't necessarily put them in the same category as the car audio example you gave to be honest, there are very few "re-badged" inverters out there that have the same innards, as far as I know. There are some that have been re-branded along the way, due to commercial integration, or mergers etc (P1/ABB, SMA/Zeversolar/Danfoss), or geographical restriction agreements between two different manufacturers, where the OEM licences the product to the other company, under a different brand for example (AE/Steca, Eltek/Danfoss etc).
In terms of 1ph budget units from Asia, everyone has their own experience I guess, but from what I have looked into, SAJ, SofarSolar, Afore and GoodWe would perhaps be where I would draw the line. To be honest, apart from our own Afore stocks (which are very little) we are hardly active at all in the 1ph/residential market, which has been the way for a few years now really.
One problem with Chinese manufactured products like these, are that they tend to change the BOM without advising anyone or consulting their ODM partners etc. Whether through cost-saving efforts, or simply due to component suppliers changing their own products. So, if you evaluate a product initially, and approve it for use etc, you are unlikely to even know that the reliability or performance has changed, before it's too late. I guess this applies to most electronics manufacturers, but seems to be more prevalent in Chinese manufacturing. Common failure points like electrolytic capacitors, varistors and connection relays are often cost-reduced over time, increasing the defect/PPM numbers in the field.
