Suzuki Motor aims to reduce its vehicle development timeline to 24 months by the end of the decade, hoping to match the pace set by Chinese manufacturers, Bloomberg reported, citing CEO Toshihiro Suzuki.
The Japanese carmaker currently takes 40 to 48 months to bring a new model to market.
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According to the report, this shift forms part of a broader reassessment among legacy automakers of their production strategies as competition from China intensifies.
Suzuki observed that the industry’s traditional benchmarks – Japanese manufacturing precision and German engineering – have been overtaken by the speed of Chinese companies such as BYD, Leapmotor and Xiaomi, which combine rapid development cycles with software-driven design and advanced battery systems.
While addressing reporters in Tokyo, Suzuki said: “Chinese manufacturers have incredible speed. To keep up, we need to figure out how to move faster.”
Having withdrawn from the US and Chinese markets in 2012 and 2018 respectively, Suzuki is now focused on India as its central growth region.
Maruti Suzuki India, its local subsidiary, stated in August that it expects the domestic passenger vehicle market to grow to between 6.1 million and 6.3 million units by FY 2030-31, a projection attributed by chairman RC Bhargava to fresh demand for small cars combined with a bolstered SUV lineup.
The company’s board also approved an initial outlay of Rs5.61bn ($58.8m) toward constructing four biogas plants, part of its broader clean-energy strategy.
Bhargava said biogas could reduce dependence on imported compressed natural gas while backing India’s net-zero targets.
In July, Maruti Suzuki India began commercial production at Plant D within its Hansalpur facility in Gujarat, lifting the site’s annual production capacity to one million vehicles – the first Suzuki manufacturing location globally to reach this level.
Plant D will initially build the battery electric e VITARA. Across the Hansalpur site, Maruti Suzuki currently produces the Baleno, Fronx, Swift and e VITARA.
