Chinese automakers are setting new benchmarks in the realm of new energy vehicles (NEVs).

Japanese automakers are keen learners from their Chinese counterparts.

According to a report by Carscoops, a renowned overseas automotive media outlet, Nissan Motor recently announced at its Yokohama headquarters event that by embracing the R&D models of Chinese automakers, it has successfully halved the development cycle for brand-new models from 50 months to 37 months, and for facelifted models from 50 months to 30 months.

Nissan's upcoming all-new Skyline model, from project initiation to design completion, took a mere 26 months, less than half of the 55-month development cycle of its predecessor.

Can simply adopting the R&D models of Chinese automakers significantly shorten the development cycle? Are these models truly as magical as they seem?

The Chinese Model: A Universal Remedy?

During the era of fuel-powered vehicles, the slow iteration of automotive hardware and software allowed automakers to invest more time in refining details and optimizing product design. However, in the NEV era, rapid advancements in battery technology, intelligent driving technology, and in-vehicle systems have compelled automakers to accelerate model refresh rates to prevent their products from becoming obsolete due to a lack of the latest technologies.

Nevertheless, automakers cannot blindly pursue speed; otherwise, vehicles may suffer from detail and quality issues. The recent online buzz about "quick-fix vehicles" stems from certain automakers' failure to thoroughly refine their products, resulting in design and quality defects.

To enhance new vehicle development speed while ensuring quality, domestic automakers typically adopt methods such as platform and component reuse, parallel R&D, and in-house development of core components. These are precisely the key aspects that Nissan Motor is learning from Chinese automakers.

Nissan executive Kazuyuki Yamaguchi stated that in the past, Nissan aimed for comprehensiveness in new vehicle development, leading to prolonged R&D cycles and planning. Now, Nissan no longer creates multiple design proposals for each new model for repeated selection. Instead, it categorizes models into family platforms with shared hard points, significantly shortening the design cycle.

(Image source: Dianchetong)

Taking platform and component reuse as an example, this approach enables automakers to develop once and use multiple times, reducing both new vehicle development time and R&D costs. For instance, BYD's pure electric architecture e-platform 3.0, hybrid platform DM, and Yi Si Fang/Yi San Fang cater to different powertrains and model positioning, covering vehicles from A0 to D-class.

Great Wall Motor's Guiyuan S platform encompasses five powertrains: gasoline, pure electric, plug-in hybrid, oil-electric hybrid, and hydrogen energy. Moreover, the same suspension module can adapt to bodies with different wheelbases. In the future, most Great Wall models can be upgraded to the Guiyuan S platform, saving time and resources on platform development.

(Image source: Great Wall Motor)

Furthermore, Nissan Motor is streamlining its organizational structure by eliminating the setup of independent project directors, product planning managers, and chief engineers for each model to avoid delays caused by internal disagreements. At the technical level, Nissan has introduced AI modeling, digital twins, and virtual reality for testing and validation in virtual environments, reducing the need for physical prototypes.

These practices, common among Chinese automakers, represent revolutionary changes when applied to Nissan Motor, a company with a nearly century-long history.

Traditional overseas automakers have a long history and deep heritage but have also accumulated numerous drawbacks over time, resembling sixty- or seventy-year-olds with rich experience but lacking the spirit of striving and progressiveness. Chinese automakers, on the other hand, are like twenty- or thirty-year-olds working hard for their careers.

Nissan's adoption of the Chinese model aims to rejuvenate itself, and it is not the only overseas automaker seeking guidance from China.

The Shift in Definitional Power Towards Chinese Automakers

In 2023, Nikkei BP, Japan's largest financial and technology media outlet, disassembled a BYD Seal for reverse engineering. This marked Japan's first systematic disassembly of a Chinese-brand pure electric model, aiming to understand China's four core capabilities in new energy: Cell-to-Body (CTB), eight-in-one electric drive, vertical integration, and cost control. The final conclusion was that the Chinese solution outperformed in terms of integration, cost, and speed, making it difficult for Japan to replicate in the short term.

Such cases of learning from Chinese automakers' work models and product designs are abundant. Even the world's top two automakers by sales, Toyota and Volkswagen, have chosen to collaborate with Chinese companies, leveraging their technology to enhance product competitiveness in the Chinese and global markets.

Toyota first partnered with BYD to develop the bZ3 model based on BYD's three-electric system. Subsequently, it collaborated with Huawei, Momenta, and other companies, utilizing Huawei's intelligent cockpit technology and Momenta's intelligent driving technology to develop the Platinum Wisdom (Bozhì) 7 model.

(Image source: Dianchetong)

Volkswagen engaged in in-depth cooperation with XPENG Motors, developing the high-end SUV ZHI 08 based on XPENG's VLA intelligent driving system, CEA electronic and electrical architecture, intelligent cockpit, and Turing chip. The second collaborative model, ZHI 09, is also set to launch soon.

Numerous cases, such as the collaboration between traditional luxury automakers BBA (BMW, Benz, Audi) with Huawei and Momenta, Stellantis' joint venture with Leapmotor International, and Mazda's deep cooperation with Changan, all indicate the increasing reliance of overseas automakers on Chinese automakers.

During the era of fuel-powered vehicles, China's automotive industry lagged behind, forcing it to adopt a joint venture model to introduce overseas automakers in exchange for market access. At that time, overseas automakers held the discourse power, with joint venture brands not only following overseas automakers' opinions in vehicle design and sales but also allowing overseas automakers to define what types of vehicles Chinese consumers preferred.

Now, the situation has reversed. The learning and reliance of overseas giants reflect the historic leap of China's automotive industry from "scale breakthrough" to "rule setting." Chinese automakers are no longer satisfied with just increasing sales and market share; they are now vying for the definitional power of the global automotive industry through the output of technical standards, industrial rules, and value systems.

In February this year, at a meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Automated Driving Systems, China's multiple technical proposals regarding dynamic driving tasks and human-machine interaction were approved.

In March, BYD announced its membership in the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) and obtained voting rights for global automotive quality management system standards in May. This marked the first time a Chinese automaker entered the core decision-making circle of global automotive rules, breaking the century-long monopoly of "automotive legislative power" by European, American, and Japanese automakers.

(Image source: Dianchetong)

The confidence of Chinese automakers in vying for industry discourse and definitional power with global established giants stems from their leadership in the three-electric system, intelligence, and sales growth. Taking the battery aspect of the three-electric system as an example, domestically produced lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium batteries have gained recognition from global consumers, with CATL and BYD ranking first and second in global power battery installation volume.

In terms of sales, among the top ten global automotive groups by sales in the first half of this year, three Chinese automakers—BYD, Geely, and Chery—made the list. Moreover, they not only achieved high sales domestically but also set new records in overseas markets. China surpassed Japan to become the world's largest automotive exporter in 2025, and in 2026, BYD, Chery, and Geely continued to experience leaping growth in overseas sales.

From the adoption of Chinese proposals in UN automated driving rules to the leadership of domestic automakers in initiating multiple international standards for new energy vehicles, China is transitioning from a rule follower to a global industry standard setter.

The current industry landscape, where overseas automakers actively seek guidance and deeply integrate Chinese technology, is not coincidental but rather the inevitable result of China's systematic superiority in complete vehicle technology, supply chain systems, and iteration models. This solidifies China's leading position in the global automotive industry, meaning that China now holds the core discourse power in product definition, technical standards, and R&D rules for global new energy vehicles.

The Era of Chinese Automakers Has Arrived

Nissan's humility in learning from China's R&D system and the collaborations of international giants such as Toyota, Volkswagen, and Stellantis with Chinese automakers to acquire core technologies mark a complete shift in the discourse power of the global automotive industry.

Once, China's automotive industry lingered in a weak position of technological following and passive rule acceptance, relying on "market-for-technology" to catch up with overseas automakers with difficulty. Model definition, technical standards, and R&D rhythms were all dominated by European, American, and Japanese companies. However, in the new energy era, Chinese automakers have completed a historic reversal from apprentices to masters, from followers to leaders, thanks to their complete industrial chain layout, ultimate R&D iteration models, and continuously breaking through core technologies.

(Image source: Dianchetong)

Today, China's automotive industry not only leads in sales volume but also achieves comprehensive output in terms of technical systems, R&D models, and industry rules.

Localized R&D models such as platform architecture reuse, full-stack in-house development, AI virtual testing, and parallel development have become universal standards for global automakers to reduce costs and accelerate speeds. Core technologies such as the three-electric system, intelligent driving, and electronic and electrical architectures have broken overseas monopolies and become the core reliance for international automakers' transformations.

From Japan's disassembly of domestically produced models for reverse engineering to the adoption of Chinese technical standards by international authoritative organizations and the granting of rule-voting rights to Chinese automakers, it is evident that China now firmly holds the product definitional power, technical standard power, and industry discourse power for global new energy vehicles.

The current industry landscape, where overseas automakers vie to learn from China, marks the official eastward shift of the power center in the century-old automotive industry. The era of Chinese automakers leading the development of the automotive industry has arrived.

BYD, XPENG, Nissan, new energy vehicles, Toyota

Source: Leikeji

The images in this article are from the 123RF royalty-free image library. Source: Leikeji