Four to five years vs under two: Nissan, Honda, Toyota hit fast-forward button as Japan chases China

A Nissan new energy vehicle store in a shopping mall in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area on October 12. Japanese carmakers including Nissan are working to shorten vehicle development times to keep pace with faster Chinese rivals. — CFoto pic via AFP

First Published: Sunday, 25 Oct 2026 5:53 PM MYT

TOKYO, Oct 25 — Japanese automakers are stepping up efforts to shorten their vehicle development times as they seek to catch up with Chinese rivals that offer new models to global markets more quickly and to better respond to changing customer demand, Kyodo News reported.

Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co, Nissan Motor Co and other Japanese carmakers typically spend around four to five years developing a new model, more than twice as long as the less than two years taken by Chinese companies.

As part of its reform measures, Nissan aims to slash development times under its new family-based vehicle development strategy.

The carmaker will design a common platform for multiple models of the same size.

The carmaker, for example, plans to shorten the lead time for developing a new sport-utility vehicle model to three years and one month for launch in North America in 2028.

It will then use the same platform as that of the new SUV for its derivative models, enabling it to reduce development time by up to 40 per cent to two and a half years.

The new product strategy will cover 80 per cent of the company’s global sales and is expected to cut the number of part types by 70 per cent.

“This is a reform to become a company that responds to changes and delivers good cars in a timely manner,” Hidemi Sasaki, deputy general manager of Nissan’s product planning division, said.

Honda, seeking a V-shaped recovery from its first net loss in the last fiscal year, has introduced the “Triple Half” approach designed to halve development costs, time frames and workloads from 2025 levels, making full use of artificial intelligence and other digital technologies.

The new initiatives will begin with new models whose development the company will start in 2028.

Toyota, the world’s largest automaker by volume, is also working to reduce types of parts, depending on customer needs, as fewer parts will improve productivity and speed up development work.

Naming the project “Area 35”, Toyota aims to improve the use of plant floor space by 35 per cent.

Suzuki Motor Corp. plans to halve its current development time to around two years, while Mitsubishi Motors Corp also aims to shorten the period by 20 per cent to three years by around 2030. — Bernama-Kyodo