Japanese carmakers to cut development times to keep up with Chinese rivals
Japanese carmakers Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Suzuki and Mitsubishi are cutting vehicle development times, using shared platforms and AI, to catch Chinese rivals launching models in under two years.
Oct 25, 2026, 05:05 PM
- Japanese carmakers are cutting development times to compete with Chinese rivals, who launch new models in less than two years. Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Suzuki and Mitsubishi are all speeding up work.
- Nissan will use a family-based strategy and shared platforms to cut SUV development to three years and one month, and reduce time by up to 40%. It expects 80% of global sales to use this plan.
- Honda’s “Triple Half” aims to halve costs, time and workloads from 2025 levels using AI. Toyota’s Area 35 will cut parts and raise plant space use by 35%, while Suzuki and Mitsubishi also plan faster development.
TOKYO – Japanese carmakers 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, to better respond to changing customer demand.
Toyota, Honda, Nissan 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. It will design a common platform for multiple models of the same size.
For example, it 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% to 2½ years.
The new product strategy will cover 80% of the company’s global sales and is expected to cut the number of part types by 70%.
“This is a reform to become a company that responds to changes and delivers good cars in a timely manner,” said Hidemi Sasaki, deputy general manager of Nissan’s product planning division.
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 carmaker by volume, is also working to reduce types of parts, depending on customer needs, as fewer parts will improve productivity and speed up new model development work.
Naming the project Area 35, Toyota aims to improve the use of plant floor space by 35%.
Suzuki, meanwhile, plans to halve its current development time to around two years, while Mitsubishi aims to shorten the period by 20% to three years by around 2030. KYODO NEWS
Source: The Straits Times https://www.straitstimes.com/business/japanese-carmakers-to-cut-development-times-to-counter-chinese-rivals?ref=latest
