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A senior member in the development team of a Chinese car maker told Autocar the story - on condition of anonymity - of when a storied German engineering consultancy visited earlier this year to offer their services. “They told me we can cut vehicle development times from five years to three years and I said 'we can’t work to those speeds'”. He paused for effect. “'That electric car we picked you up in, we developed that in 18 months'.” 

The problem of how to keep pace with the Chinese has been gnawing away at Western car makers as they strategise how to avoid getting left behind in the race to build modern, electrified cars.

Many of these car makers have a ringside seat on the pace of development as they watch their joint-venture partners in China go from being essentially contract manufacturers to fully fledged automotive powerhouses with desirable brands of their own.

Now those Chinese cars are coming here, with the likes of MG, BYD and Chery (parent of Omoda and Jaecoo) all posting phenomenal sales gains across Western Europe for high-tech models that undercut the price of incumbent cars at a quality close enough for buyers to make the leap.

To avoid the same market-share erosion, established car makers must learn to adopt the same nimble approach. “They need to do a lot,” Eric Zayer, head of autos for Europe at consultancy Bain, told Autocar.

Bain research shows that 20 to 24 months is considered a regular development time for a new vehicle in China, compared with between 36 to almost 50 months for Western car makers.

Moving faster has lots of obvious advantages, including the one most prized by car makers faced with financial pressures on a level rarely experienced before. “A difference in speed directly translates into a difference in cost,” Zayer said. The longer a car takes to develop, the longer engineers are tied up on a project that can’t be monetised and might be using out-of-date tech when it finally arrives.

There are other benefits too. Those who develop faster can more quickly react to trends and in China those trends manifest themselves incredibly fast: witness the craze for camping developed during Covid that led to the explosion of chunky off-roaders such as the iCar V23 and MG Cyber X at this year’s Shanghai motor show.

But how does China manage it? And how can Western car makers follow their lead?

One way is to develop more of a software mindset. “Western manufacturers create a generation one, put that aside and start with generation two,“ said Klaus Stricker, global head of automotive at Bain. “But the Chinese are continuously developing things further. That comes from the software world as compared to car world, where development processes are centred around the start of production.”

If something goes wrong, for example on software, “they have to pause the car and cannot launch,” Stricker said.

He didn’t name examples, but a good one might be the slow roll-out of Stellantis’s Smart Car platform, due to software issues, which delayed the launch of crucial cut-price EVs such as the Citroën ë-C3 and Fiat Grande Panda Electric.

The Chinese are also helped by the fact they essentially started from scratch, meaning many platforms are optimised for a modern software age, rather than carrying over previous architectures.

Chinese development teams also tend to be younger, Bain research shows. They lack the experience of say, a German team, but what experience they do have is in future technologies such as the battery, the electric drivetrain and the software.

“These are disciplines where the Western manufacturers typically are not so strong, meaning that they have to educate and reskill their team, which is very hard if your team is of a certain age,” Stricker said.

One obvious difference is the hours clocked. “To be very honest, in terms of speed, it's not only great technology; sometimes Chinese people just work harder,” said Volkswagen Group CFO Arno Antlitz on his company’s first-quarter earnings call.

Everyone in the automotive industry has a story about their Chinese counterparts working unfeasibly long hours. “Our China team got 10 days holiday a year, but they rarely took it, because it was frowned on,” one industry executive told Autocar. 

The standard working pattern is ‘996’, meaning 9am to 9pm six days a week. High levels of competitiveness in the market means the boss is likely to be working just as hard, if not harder, helping to engender a loyalty among staff keen to see their company succeed.

Replicating that work rate is difficult in Europe – but not impossible. The Volkswagen Group is looking to copy the Chinese two-shift R&D system by using its global network, for example.

“We could develop things in Wolfsburg and then push it in the evening to our development headquarters in Mexico and Brazil, use the time there and get it back the next morning,” Antlitz said.

Another way is to just develop cars in China. “We are basically ramping up a local R&D centre in China with global responsibility,” Antlitz said. 

The Volkswagen Group is changing its working strategy by collaborating with its Chinese manufacturing partners SAIC and FAW on development and bringing in Xpeng as well.

Volkswagen unveiled three concept cars at the Shanghai show, previewing new Chinese-market models coming next year that utilise the country’s faster development speed and cheaper supply chain.

That ‘China speed’ thinking is then being applied to the new ID 2 and ID 1 small electric cars going on sale next year, of which the ID 2 at least is promised to be the first VW EV to deliver margin parity with an equivalent ICE model, specifically the T-Cross.

Renault meanwhile thinks it has already cracked the secret to fast development, promising that development of the new electric Twingo due in 2026 will take just 21 months under a programme it calls Leap 100, named for the target number of weeks for development.

“I think we've just moved to Chinese speed,” Renault CEO Luca de Meo told investors back in February. A new Twingo-based Dacia model will be developed even faster in just 16 months, he promised. “I defy any competitor in the world to do that, including the Chinese when they come to Europe,” he said.

Almost all car makers are promising faster development times. Nissan, for example, says the first model based on its new ‘family’ platform (which will spawn a new global compact SUV) will be developed in 37 months, down from 55 months now. Subsequent models will bring that time down to 30 months.

The tricky part is to raise the speed without losing the quality.

“Western manufacturers have a tendency to be lax on deadlines. If they feel that the performance is not there, then they will just go back and repeat one step. They will try different things in an attempt to develop the perfect product,” Zayer at Bain said. “Whereas the cost discipline and the process discipline is just much higher for some of the new players that value speed and cost over maybe the perfection in the product.”

The new BMW M2 CS has been unveiled in full, and it could be the final version of the brand’s junior sports car to feature pure combustion power.

Priced from £86,800, the stripped-out, track-focused sports car is the first variant of the ‘G87’ M2 to be launched and comes six years after the original M2 CS (Competition Sport).

While that car was rated at 444bhp (40bhp more than the ‘F87’ M2), this new CS puts out 523bhp – 50bhp more than the standard M2, using the same turbocharged 3.0-litre straight six. The increase in power takes it above its 493bhp Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS rival.

The CS’s 479lb ft of torque means the model is offered exclusively with an eight-speed automatic gearbox; the manual, says BMW, is limited to 406lb ft. The German firm adds that dwindling customer demand also informed the decision not to offer a manual option in the CS.

Given that it is a CS, a key part of the brief was to again make it as light as possible. To that end, carbonfibre has been used extensively – the metal roof and boot panels have been switched out – to drop its weight by 30kg over the standard M2 for a kerb weight of 1700kg. In all, this contributes to a 0-62mph sprint time of 3.8sec.

To cope with the power, the CS gets stiffer engine mounts and bespoke spring and damper tuning, while the steering, brakes and differentials have also been upgraded. The CS is also offered with an optional lightweight titanium M Performance exhaust. Designed specifically for the track-honed model, it offers a “more aggressive soundscape”, says BMW.

The CS is 8mm closer to the road than the standard M2, and the new carbonfibre panels also alter the look of the coupé: the bootlid now features an integrated ducktail-type rear spoiler, and there is a chunkier rear diffuser than previously. A new lightweight alloy wheel design features, too, and it is available exclusively with a Golden Bronze finish. Four paint fi nishes are offered: Black Sapphire, Portimao Blue, Brooklyn Grey and Velvet Blue.

Inside, the M2 CS gets an Alcantara steering wheel with carbonfibre paddles, as well as the M Carbon bucket seats that are available as an optional extra on other models. The centre console, too, is made from carbonfi bre and features a red CS badge.

Despite its hardcore positioning, the CS is offered with creature comforts that include a heated steering wheel, three-zone climate control, a head-up display and a Harman Kardon sound system.

The CS will be produced in limited numbers, with UK deliveries starting towards the end of the summer.

BMW has launched a new range-topping M60 version of the i4 electric saloon with 593bhp – outpunching the petrol-powered M4 CS by a full 50bhp.

Replacing the 537bhp i4 M50, the i4 M60 is priced from £70,910 and can complete the 0-62mph sprint in 3.7sec – down 0.2sec on the old car.

That makes it some £50k cheaper than the blue-blooded M4 CS and almost as quick, trailing the super-coupé by just 0.1sec to 62mph.

The power does, however, bring a significant trade-off in terms of range. Whereas the single-motor, 335bhp i4 eDrive40 is capable of driving 317 miles between charges, the i4 M60 is limited to 269

In addition to rolling out the new range-topper, BMW has updated all versions of the i4 with more energy-efficient silicon-carbide inverters.

Deliveries of the updated i4s will begin this summer. Prices start at £51,280 for the i4 eDrive35 and rise to £59,375 for the i4 eDrive40.

BMW said it will also introduce an eight-year/100,000-mile (160,000km) warranty for the traction battery in all of its electric cars, new or used, purchased from 1 April 2025.

Under this warranty, it will “remedy” any losses of capacity below 70% of the battery’s original capacity at no extra cost to the customer.