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<\/a><\/p>\n\n Renault believes it has already cracked China Speed \u2013 the new Twingo will take just 21 months to develop<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Much faster development times are giving Chinese newcomers the edge, but global giants are learning fast<\/p>\n
\nA senior member in the development team of a Chinese car maker told Autocar the story –\u00a0on condition of anonymity –\u00a0of when a storied German engineering consultancy visited earlier this year to offer their services. \u201cThey told me we can cut vehicle development times from five years to three years and I said ‘we can\u2019t work to those speeds’\u201d. He paused for effect. \u201c’That electric car we picked you up in, we developed that in 18 months’.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Now those Chinese cars are coming here<\/a>, with the likes of MG<\/a>, BYD<\/a> and Chery (parent of Omoda<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jaecoo<\/a>) 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.<\/p>\n
To avoid the same market-share erosion, established car makers must learn to adopt the same nimble approach. \u201cThey need to do a lot,\u201d Eric Zayer, head of autos for\u00a0Europe\u00a0at consultancy\u00a0Bain, told Autocar.<\/p>\n
Bain research shows that 20 to 24 months is considered a regular development time for a new vehicle in China, compared with\u00a0between 36 to almost 50 months for Western car makers.<\/p>\n
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. \u201cA difference in speed directly translates into a difference in cost,\u201d Zayer said. The longer a car takes to develop, the longer engineers are tied up on a project that can\u2019t be monetised and might be using out-of-date tech when it finally arrives.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> and MG Cyber X<\/a> at this year\u2019s Shanghai motor show<\/a>.<\/p>\n
But how does China manage it? And how can Western car makers follow their lead?<\/p>\n
One way is to develop more of a software mindset. \u201cWestern manufacturers\u00a0create a generation one, put that aside and start with generation two,\u201c said Klaus Stricker, global head of automotive at Bain. \u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
If something goes wrong, for example on software, \u201cthey have to pause the car and cannot launch,\u201d Stricker said.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t name examples, but a good one might be the slow roll-out of Stellantis\u2019s Smart Car platform, due to software issues, which delayed the launch of crucial cut-price EVs such as the Citro\u00ebn \u00eb-C3<\/a> and Fiat Grande Panda Electric<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese 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,\u201d Stricker said.<\/p>\n
One obvious difference is the hours clocked. \u201cTo be very honest, in terms of speed, it’s not only great technology; sometimes Chinese people just work harder,\u201d said\u00a0Volkswagen<\/a> Group CFO Arno Antlitz\u00a0on his company\u2019s first-quarter earnings call.<\/p>\n
Everyone in the automotive industry has a story about their Chinese counterparts working unfeasibly long hours. \u201cOur China team got 10 days holiday a year,\u00a0but they rarely took it, because it was frowned on,\u201d one industry executive told Autocar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The standard working pattern is \u2018996\u2019, meaning\u00a09am to 9pm\u00a0six 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.<\/p>\n
Replicating that work rate is difficult in Europe \u2013 but not impossible. The Volkswagen Group is looking to copy the Chinese two-shift R&D system by using its global network, for example.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d Antlitz said.<\/p>\n
Another way is to just develop cars in China. \u201cWe are basically ramping up a local R&D\u00a0centre in China with global responsibility,\u201d Antlitz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Volkswagen\u00a0Group is changing its working strategy by collaborating with its\u00a0Chinese manufacturing partners SAIC and FAW on development<\/a> and bringing in Xpeng<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n
Volkswagen unveiled three concept cars<\/a> at the Shanghai show, previewing new Chinese-market models coming next year that utilise the country\u2019s faster development speed and cheaper supply chain.<\/p>\n
That \u2018China speed\u2019 thinking is then being applied to the new ID 2<\/a> and ID 1<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Renault<\/a>\u00a0meanwhile\u00a0thinks it has already cracked the secret to fast development, promising that development of the new electric Twingo<\/a> due in 2026 will take just 21 months<\/a> under a programme it calls Leap 100, named for the target number of weeks for development.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’ve just moved to Chinese speed,\u201d Renault CEO Luca de Meo told investors back in February. A new Twingo-based Dacia model<\/a>\u00a0will be developed even faster in just 16 months, he promised. \u201cI defy any competitor in the world to do that, including the Chinese when they come to Europe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n