Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Racing to EV production
Automotive | Electric vehicles | China
October 14, 2025 – Chinese electric-vehicle (EV) OEMs have halved time to market, pressuring established automakers to speed up or fall behind. EV market share in China jumped from 1 percent in 2015 to 46 percent in 2024, explain Senior Partner Kimberly Borden and coauthors. Fast development is critical; Chinese EV makers launch new models in about 24 months, compared with up to 45 months for mass market OEMs. Legacy companies could accelerate production by adopting lean governance structures and tech-driven project management.
To read the article, see “Automotive product development: Accelerating to new horizons,” August 19, 2025.
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Visual form
Stacked Bar / Stacked Column: horizontal product-development timeline by Chinese automaker type.
Layout / body structure
Rows list automaker groups, and each row is a horizontal stacked bar split into development phases. A start-of-production marker and total month count sit at the end of each row.
What is being compared
It compares how long new electric-vehicle OEMs, mass-market OEMs, sports car manufacturers, and premium OEMs in China take to move from styling and validation through industrialization.
Measurement system
The horizontal scale is months. Segment labels show phase duration, while the total at the right of each bar reports the full development timeline.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each bar is divided into styling and design validation, engineering/tooling/testing, and industrialization. The much shorter top bar for new EV OEMs visually compresses the whole process compared with the longer incumbent-automaker rows below.
Main takeaway from the visual
The chart shows new EV OEMs reaching production far faster than established Chinese automaker groups, with the speed advantage visible across the full development chain.
Key standout values or extremes
New EV OEMs reach production in 24 months: 10 months for styling and design validation, 5 for engineering/tooling/testing, and 9 for industrialization. The comparison rows are 45 months for mass-market OEMs, 48 for sports car manufacturers, and 53 for premium OEMs.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a fixed horizontal stacked-bar timeline; there are no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the EV product-development stacked-bar timeline is the visual on this page.