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The domestic automobile market is very competitive, and the speed at which automobile companies release new cars and iterate their products is also accelerating.

On August 13, the 2025 Zeekr 001 and Zeekr 007 were launched. Among them, the Zeekr 001 is less than half a year away from the current launch. From the configuration point of view, the main changes of the new models are upgrades in the field of intelligent driving. For example, the 2025 Zeekr 007 is equipped with laser radar as standard, and the intelligent driving chip is upgraded to dual Orin X.

"(Zeekr) pursues continuous leadership, not only in market performance, but also in creating generational leadership in all dimensions. Zeekr's intelligent drive, smart cockpit and smart driving have all ushered in a new generation of evolution." On the night of the launch of the 2025 Zeekr 001 and Zeekr 007, An Conghui, CEO of Zeekr Intelligent Technology, said.

Zeekr wants to be a "leader" in product updates and iterations, but not a "lone hero". BYD Ocean Network's 2025 Seal and Seal 07 DM-i were recently launched, while the Seal Honor Edition was only launched in March this year, just over four months ago. In this regard, some people believe that the iteration speed of new energy vehicles is comparable to that of smartphones.

Smart electric vehicles enter the "speed race""era

Zhu Jiangming, founder, chairman and CEO of Leapmotor, once said: "In the past, domestic auto companies generally updated their products every four years, while foreign companies may need six years. I think smart electric vehicles should be updated every two years because they are electronic products."

Compared with traditional OEMs, new car companies often use higher-level smart cockpits and smart driver assistance chips to strengthen their innovative labels. They compete for "first launch" like smartphone companies to strengthen their innovative labels. Therefore, in the promotion of many smart electric vehicles, companies are emphasizing "first launch".

For example, the 2025 Zeekr 001 is the first to be equipped with Zeekr AI OS and Haohan Intelligent Driving 2.0. According to Chen Qi, head of Zeekr Intelligent Driving, "Different from the rule-driven 1.0 stage, Haohan Intelligent Driving 2.0 brings the scene recognition big model SCM and the interactive regulation and control big model IPM. SCM can understand more than 1,000 new traffic scenarios, and the cognitive accuracy has increased by more than 120%. IPM integrates prediction, decision-making and planning into a big model, trained with the driving experience data of experienced drivers, and restores the human driving method to the greatest extent."

Some people believe that whether it is Leapmotor, Zeekr, or BYD, the reason why they shortened the product iteration speed to about half a year is related to the current fierce market competition. Recently, He Zhiqi, executive vice president and COO of BYD Passenger Vehicles, responded to the question of "Is BYD's renewal speed a bit too fast this year?" He said: "New energy vehicles have entered the era of speed competition. We must run at full power and continue to accelerate."

Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, also said in an internal speech: "We used to make five-year strategic plans, which took a longer-term view. But now the market fluctuates too much and changes too fast. If we look at things from a five-year perspective, it may be easy to have unclear goals when making many plans. So this time we only make a two-year business plan and think things through for two years. The R&D cycle and resource investment cycle of many products are about two years."

Fuel vehicle companies are also actively "learning from experience"

Unlike smart electric vehicles, which have a product iteration cycle of as short as half a year, fuel vehicles often have a "model change once a year, a major change every three years, and a generation change every five years." Some models even take longer to upgrade.

For example, the chief engineer of the Land Cruiser series recently revealed: "It took six years to develop the new Prado." He believes that it will take a certain amount of time to provide users with products with better experience and ensure the high quality of the products, and he hopes that users can still use this car after ten, twenty years or even longer.

Not only Toyota, Honda and Audi are also sticking to the 48-month R&D time. GAC Honda has announced that it is still adhering to the 48-month complete R&D + verification cycle and strictly follows the complete quality management system. Audi also adopts a 48-month development process, which has an extra 6 months of parts and vehicle warranty approval time compared to the 30-month rush development process of some new forces.

In addition to the long development process, traditional car companies also value the testing of products before delivery. For example, before Audi products are delivered, they must complete a total of more than 7 million kilometers, covering 44 test modules and 10 extreme working conditions of vehicle testing, with complete "two winters and two summers" product verification to ensure the long-term quality of products.

It is worth mentioning that as traditional car companies accelerate their transformation to the smart electric track, these companies have also begun to "learn from" new car companies. Volkswagen and Xiaopeng Motors have started multiple collaborations, which is an example. Volkswagen said that by jointly developing with Xiaopeng Motors, Volkswagen will significantly speed up its development. According to the plan, Volkswagen's new car development cycle will be shortened from 54 months to 36 months in order to keep up with the development efficiency of Chinese competitors.

Shohei Yamazaki, global senior vice president of Nissan Motor Corporation, chairman of Nissan China Management Committee, and president of Dongfeng Motor Corporation, believes that "to overcome the impact of price competition in the Chinese market and improve Nissan's competitiveness in the Chinese market, the key point is to bring products to market more quickly and shorten the R&D cycle."

Daily Economic News