China Makes Cars So Quickly, Even the Regulators Are Worried

There was a time when launching a new car was a rather serious business. Manufacturers spent four or five years designing it, testing it, crashing it, testing it again and then, eventually, allowing a slightly nervous motoring journalist to drive it.

Not in China.

In the first six months of this year, 512 new cars were launched in China. Yes, 512. That is not a typo. It is beginning to look less like an automotive industry and more like someone has left the photocopier running.

Chinese manufacturers have become remarkably good at shortening development cycles, with new models appearing at a speed that would have seemed utterly ridiculous to the established European, Japanese and American manufacturers a decade ago. Reports suggest that some Chinese development cycles have fallen to around 18 months, compared with the traditional four to five years elsewhere.

And therein lies the problem.

You can design a new phone in 18 months. If the camera occasionally refuses to work, you sigh, reboot it and carry on. With a car, the consequences of getting the door handle, battery, braking system or autonomous-driving software wrong can be rather more exciting.

Chinese regulators appear to have noticed this inconvenient distinction.

Following a series of recalls, including one involving millions of vehicles, Beijing has launched a major campaign to improve automotive quality and safety. Manufacturers are being told to strengthen testing, reliability and durability checks, while regulators are taking a much closer interest in new technologies and driver-assistance systems.

Quite right too.

The Chinese automotive industry has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to innovate, manufacture and iterate at a pace that leaves traditional manufacturers looking as though they are building cars with stone tablets and quills.

But there is a difference between fast innovation and fast validation.

The danger is that the relentless race to launch the next “revolutionary” model becomes an arms race in which yesterday’s revolutionary car is already yesterday’s mistake before the customer has finished paying for it.

China’s automotive revolution is undoubtedly impressive. But perhaps, just occasionally, the engineers should be allowed to put down their soldering irons, step away from the production line and ask one simple question:

“Has anybody actually tested this thing properly?”

Because producing 512 new cars is impressive.

Producing 512 good new cars would be rather more impressive.