Japanese automakers have become obsessed with the idea of ‘China Speed,’ which sounds like a made up drug that has to be stopped in Rush Hour 6 but is actually just a way to describe the efficiency of that country’s manufacturing. Instead of waiting the typical 4-to-6 years (or longer) to develop and produce a new car, Chinese automakers seem to be able to get products to market in as fast as 24 months.
Nissan wants to be the first Japanese automaker to truly embrace China Speed with its next round of North American trucks. As any Morning Dump reader knows, sometimes moving fast means breaking things, and I have my concerns. That desire for speed stands in contrast to another Japanese automaker, which is going to wait more than a decade to replace a key vehicle.
The downside of China Speed is that sometimes technology gets ahead of the governments ability to regulate it, which is why Tesla is going to join other carmakers in its biggest recall ever. Perhaps that speed is better than slowness of Volkswagen, which is apparently in ‘Cloud-Cuckoo-Land’ with its visions of the future.
Nissan Can’t Hardly Wait
I 100% get it, and I am 83% on board. Nissan wants to build a new series of vehicles on a new body-on-frame platform, including a brand new Xterra. CEO Ivan Espinosa has only so long to prove he deserves the job, and waiting until 2033 to roll out a bunch of good products isn’t going to work.
Is 2028 too soon, though? According to Nikkei Asia, that’s where the company is heading with its Family Strategy, which involves creating a base platform and building models off of that, as opposed to building a lot of individual models. This is the modular approach used by Volkswagen and many other automakers, so it’s a little amusing that it’s taken Nissan this long to come around to it.
How much will it quicken the pace?
It aims to reduce that to 37 months for projects requiring development of a new platform, meaning a basic vehicle frame, and to 30 months for follow-on projects that use an existing platform.
To accelerate development, Nissan has overhauled the process. Previously, decision making often took longer because authority was split among three leaders responsible for profitability, product appeal and execution within each project. The company has since had its product planning and profitability leaders work as a team and leave engineers to focus on execution, enabling leaner and faster decision making.
Nissan uses AI and digital technologies as well to improve the efficiency of vehicle testing.
AI! Certainly nothing will go wrong by using AI. That never happens.
Unsurprisingly, Nissan is going to attempt this first in the United States. It sounds like Hans Greimel was at the same press conference and had this to report:
The first of three product families will be frame-based trucks geared for the U.S. market and made at the Japanese carmaker’s Canton, Miss., plant. The lead nameplate, the revived Nissan XTerra, will land around 2028 and be followed by four sibling spinoffs by the end of the decade.
The advance puts Nissan Motor Co. in competition with Chinese rivals that are churning out cars in 24 months or even faster, a breakneck speed legacy players call China Speed.
Again, in abstract, this is a good idea. Super long development periods means you’re often on your back foot as a car company, and if things change (tariffs, electric car subsidies) it’s painfully slow to switch directions.
On the other side of this, going too fast means the potential for huge quality risks. I don’t have any specific insight into whether or not Nissan can do this or not–it’s on the lower end of recalls by brands in the US–but history is history. Remember when Toyota rushed an electric car onto the market and the wheels started literally falling off the things? Remember the Fisker Ocean? [Ed Note: A body-on-frame vehicle using preexisting powertrains should be a lot simpler to crank out than an all-new EV. I think this is doable. -DT].
If Nissan can pull it off, it’ll be great, though it’s not worth it if the company can’t come close to nailing it on the first try.
The Mazda CX-30 Has Been Delayed Until At Least 2031
The Mazda CX-30 is a good car that’s basically impossible to sell at a competitive price in the United States after tariffs. As Japan’s Chugoku Shimbun (via Motor1) explains, that means we’re going to be waiting a while for a new one:
Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro told Japan’s Chugoku Shimbun that the next-generation model will not land until fiscal year 2030, which runs through March 2031.
That is a 12-year run for the current CX-30 without a full overhaul, an unusually long stretch even by Mazda’s conservative product cycles. Moro pinned the delay on cost pressure the automaker cannot ignore.
Cheap cars run on slim margins and, in the United States, that usually means foreign production. Now that foreign production is subject to higher tariffs, cheap cars are going to be a lot harder to come by.
China Moves To Fix The Damn Doors
Motorized doors are largely dumb, and a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Even worse, in an accident they create a need for secondary systems to operate that are either difficult to locate in an emergency or don’t function at all.
China has decided to discourage the use of these doors in the future, and is now forcing Tesla, Xiaomi, and other automakers to recall vehicles to make it clearer how to escape and/or to reprogram systems to make them operate better.
Tesla is the largest participant in this round of recalls, with 2 recalls covering a combined 5,716,552 vehicles, according to CnEVPost’s calculations.
Of those, 2,975,910 vehicles are being recalled over the emergency mechanical door releases, effective September 25, 2026, including 973,156 domestically built Model 3s and 1,956,713 domestically built Model Ys.
Imported models account for 35,590 Model 3s, 8,328 Model Xs and 2,123 Model Ss.
Tesla will add warning labels free of charge and update the window control software via OTA to add a post-crash window-lowering strategy. Some vehicles that already carry the labels will not need them applied again.
I cannot wait for this era to end.
VW’s Management Is In ‘Cloud-Cuckoo-Land’
Having grown up in a German household, I’m aware that bluntness can sometimes border on cleverness. Such is the case with Christiane Benner, the head of Germany’s IG Metall trade union and current VW AG supervisory board deputy chair, who called CEO Oliver Blume’s goal of reaching a 9% operating return as belonging in “cloud-cuckoo-land.”
Lol.
Bloomberg has her full reasoning:
“How is Volkswagen supposed to achieve an operating return on sales of 9% — as reported in the media — under the current geopolitical conditions?,” Christiane Benner, who is also chair of Germany’s powerful IG Metall labor union, was quoted as saying Friday by magazine WirtschaftsWoche.
“When the executive board sets such targets, it has massive repercussions on model strategy and on the plants,” she added. VW, which has set its sights on an operating return on sales of 8% to 10% by 2030, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
One way is to close plants, though I don’t think Benner is necessarily on board with that.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
The remarkable Count Basie was born on this day in 1904. Here’s Basie and his Orchestra at the 1979 North Sea Jazz Festival doing “Sweet Georgia Brown.” He was 75 and absolutely still had it.
The Big Question
What’s the most rushed car in history?
Top photo: Nissan
Maybe the Lincoln Versailles – a barely warmed over Granada.
Was listening to an interview with a designer at Hyundai/Kia and kind of got the impression they’re already somewhat doing this, which is part of what has let them roll out so many models and model variations with surprisingly fresh styling and arguably innovate on EVs further than the Japanese or Americans.
Of course the flip side is there seem to be some evidence (mostly reading the comments here lol) that their quality control has sporadically suffered as well as other frustrating problems like long wait times for parts when service is required.
I don’t want to sound sinophobic but we used to do a lot of business with Chinese camera parts suppliers and re-sellers in my previous career, and let’s say it left me slightly mistrustful of their approach to things(also see: buying stuff on Amazon) Which is not to say that the Chinese can’t build incredible stuff but that they are a vastly different culture from the US and what passes for acceptable levels of quality and reliability there may not be the same here. And of course this could just be nervous hand wringing and Chinese made cars are built like ’90s Toyotas, but even if they have it down doesn’t mean that the Japanese will successfully copy them. In my mostly anecdotally informed opinion Nissan has never had the same level of build quality as Honda or Toyota even in their heyday so hard to see how they’re suddenly going to reverse course.
Some Chinese manufacturers also do a good job of being responsive to user communication. The remote control transmitters I use are excellent examples where a manufacturer worked with enthusiasts to make radios that work well and have user replaceable parts. I’m seeing another example now where a R/C plane maker is actively soliciting feedback to make their stuff better.
RadioMaster and FrSky are so, so good they basically make legacy manufacturers like Futaba irrelevant.
Price no object I’d rather have my FrSky X20RS than the fanciest Futaba at 5x the cost.
Oh for sure-I have a Fosi mini stereo receiver, and it just works so perfectly doing everything I want and nothing I don’t. I think that kind of product quality only comes from user research, listening to product feedback, and laser focus on a making a quality product. It’s a rare bit of home electronics that I have essentially zero complaints about.
Look how cool our disappearing door handles are! Even cooler, look at the safety sticker we slapped in your car! “The idiots that designed this are dumber than they appear”.
Re: China speed, one overlooked reason for this is related to yesterday’s 500 new models discussion. China builds cars much like we have built PCs for the last 40 years. Almost all parts are modular an interchangeable. Look at some other sectors and it becomes obvious. Suddenly there are hundreds of me-too products with the same specifications and price points. Completely commodified especially in electronics where you can literally buy a chip on a mainboard and slap it in your own case. I was looking at wireless microphones. There are literally hundreds of models of the same thing for less than $40 with barely any differentiation other than where I can buy it from.
A few weeks back, there was a discussion of how Japanese automakers can get together to design and share parts this way. This is what will bring China speed. Suddenly the barrier to entry is lowered so much that months/years of product development cycles shrink.
Think about it. Somewhere (I don’t remember where) I read about a guy that built a Jeep in his back yard almost all from off the shelf parts ordered over the internet. That’s the legacy of the speed it took to win a war or something.
TBQ: Cimmaron.
Five new trucks or one new truck with five different names?
A mix of 5 BOF trucks and SUVs built on one shared platform. If I recall correctly Nissan has confirmed 3 of them: Frontier, Xterra, Pathfinder.
I see VW has taken a page from the Underpants Gnomes playbook.
Phase 1: Set goal 10%
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit
9% ROS is certainly possible. Toyota does it. However, the IG Metall rep isn’t going to like what is required to get there.
It could be done by increasing efficiency in Germany by closing under utilized factories, cutting the work force and dialing back on the 35 hour work week, 30 days of paid vacation, and 9 to 13 paid public holidays that IG Metall workers enjoy.
The other option is to do nothing in Germany but outsource an ever increasing amount of part manufacturing and vehicle assembly to low cost countries. IG Metall follows the path of the UAW with an ever shrinking number of very well paid workers.
Nissan should sell the Navara over here, along with the Xterra they already sell in the middle east.
The most Rush-ed car in history is a Red Barchetta
Love the old-school Expos avatar.
Merci, mon ami!
If they can figure out how to do China speed outside of China more power to them. China speed isn’t just one company it’s all the companies and systems. Cities that are in certain industries. Like we used to have in the US just further optimized. Company factory cities just outside or still inside industry cities.
GM had a high cadence of modle releases for decades but I don’t think they were very rushed. The most rushed I think were the bailout era parts bin cheap Chryslers. British Leyland had some too.
an ambulance?
different answer, maybe that redesign Honda did to change the “new 2012 civic” to the 2013 one? how different do they have to be to qualify?
REO Speedwagon
I guess whatever holds the land speed record right now?
solid answer, if speed is just its whole job though, is it really being rushed? hhmm
what’s the difference between “I must reach a top speed” and “I have to get to a destination as quickly as possible.”
Oh good. More disposable vehicles that won’t have repair parts availability after an even shorter time than now because the OEM moved on to a later part even faster.
I’m sure that’s fine and in no way will it lead to consumers being pushed to buy (finance) new cars more often because their current one became an irreparable lawn ornament.
The spiral down will continue until someone reaches the bottom.
When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop, and I turn, and I go for a ride
‘Till I get to the bottom, and I see you again
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
What’s the most rushed car in history?
Whichever car contained Elvis.
The Mazda shown here is an MX-30, not CX-30. It has been dead in the US since ’23.
Is that make five new trucks over two years in total? Seems like a low goal.
The secret to China Speed is forcing your workers to ingest China Speed.
Wrenching SOS guys . . . trying to remove the upstream oxygen sensor in my 17 year old car. It’s almost certainly original and it has cold-welded to the cat converter like a mother. I’ve hit it with PB Blaster a few times. Walked away for an hour to let it do it’s thing. I’ve cranked on it with my hands. I’ve hit the wrench with a hammer to try to loosen it. I even tried to use the oscillating tool touching the wrench to “vibrate” it loose. I’ve sacrificed (what I deem) an adequate amount of knuckle skin to the Wrenching Gods but no dice. Any suggestions?
Longer pry bar on the wrench?
The space is so tight I can only get one hand in and can’t take a full swing with the hammer.
Time to break out the torch.
Not that Torch. The one that heats things up. The first one would just recommend a chainsaw.
No torch but I have a heat gun. You think that might help? And also, I don’t want to set the car on fire given all the PB Blaster I’ve sprayed on that area.
Doubtful. A butane torch from Walmart isn’t that expensive and will work just fine. If the PB Blaster flames up, it shouldn’t burn for long, and you can likely just blow it out.
You have rec at the set up? I’ve never used a blow torch and am a little nervous about using it in such close quarters.
Exhaust heat can be way easier. Run the engine, get it hot, then run it hard for a bit. When you get home, hose the whole area in PB blaster. Wait. Then repeat. Do this multiple days in a row, trying to break it free again once it cools down enough to get in there with tools each day.
buy a sensor socket and a 1/2″ breaker bar. the socket has side and end keys for the bar. It was an expensive socket, I don’t know why I didn’t buy it sooner.
I have the specialty socket but it seems like a lot of force is lost when cranking on it vs. a straight wrench.
My bar is pretty hefty and i get a lot of leverage with the side key
I have never had luck using wrenches on O2 sensors, gotta get the proper O2 sensor crows foot socket from the auto parts store, usually $20 or so. that way you can get more leverage on it.
Maybe I’ll wait until midnight, look in the mirror and say, “Iron Oxide,” three times and David Tracy, The Rust God himself, will appear and give me a hand.
I don’t know if this makes any sense or not without looking at what you’re doing, but a flare end wrench might give you better grip if you can get it in there.
If you can get to it from the top. A high torque impact and extension can do wonders.
Your took kit can beat up my tool kit.
Good suggestions, everyone. I think the plan right this second is to eat lunch, let the PB Blaster work on it and give it one more try before escalating to heat.
Send me a pic? (david@TheAutopian.com).
Have you done this with the engine warmed up and this thing piping hot from the motor?
I have not done it with a hot motor because I understand that the cat converter gets stupid hot. I’ll send a pic/video. Thanks.
Have you ever thought of setting up an old school forum or something of the like at the Autopian? I dont know anything about discord, so I dont know if y’all have something on it for wrenching. But there is a wealth of knowledge here, and folks needing it. It may be nice. Maybe even a weekly Ask David article on wrenching problems?
Do you need to save the sensor? When I have had stuck sensors that are being replaced, I cut the wire and use impact deep sockets on them. Don’t overlook the loosen/tighten method once it starts to move. Running it back and forth a little lets the rust work its way out.
I don’t but I want to keep the option open of driving the car to the mechanic with my tail between my legs.
Even if you cut the wires, it should run fine enough to get to the mechanic. People put thousands of miles on cars while ignoring a bad o2 sensor, so you should be good for a trip to the shop.
I’m noting these replies though, I can’t get one of the o2 sensors off my beater truck. Good news is that if I reset the CEL it runs great, I usually get several weeks before it comes back on again. The sensor isn’t totally dead, just something wrong with the heating element.
I had a bolt that wouldn’t respond to PB blaster or just heat and vise grips. I remembered a YouTube video I saw and didn’t completely believe, and tried it anyway: heat the area, then push a crayon into the threads. The bolt came off with minimal wrenching effort. YMMV.
I saw that on YouTube as well but was warned that once you do that, you’ve essentially sealed the threads from any sort of penetrating oil.
You may be right. I haven’t had to remove the bolt that the crayon released. Since I was repairing the brakes on my DD, time was not on my side, and any form of success was acceptable.
Some good recommendations that beat me to the punch, so I’ll put in a plug for a product that has astounded me in the past. I’m not stating this will solve the problem here, but while PB Blaster is decent, the stuff I used working on boats at a salt water marina was Zep 45 and it blew away everything else. For really stubborn things you’re sure are going to need to be torched off, spray, leave overnight, and be amazed at it breaking loose the next morning no matter how many times you’ve seen it work. It’s not perfect and sometimes a torch is all that will get it done, but it made sure those events were rare. It’s an industrial kind of product, so it’s not easy to find unless you want to order a case, but I’d look for singles as one can lasts a long damn time as whatever they use for aerosols lasts until the very end of the product in the can, you usually don’t need to use much, and it’s a big can. I’d definitely recommend a well ventilated area, too, it’s not like other stuff is something you want to breathe in, either.
The guys I know that work on huge compressor engines and gensets swear by zep 45. I have yet to be converted but keep some around just in case. Granger normally has it and doesn’t ask questions. I’ve seen it at home Depot too.
It’s almost certainly original and it has cold-welded to the cat converter like a mother.
Might have to take the cat off the car, then get the longer wrench?
(Disclaimer: not a wrench guy.)
I’m not gonna’ take the cat off. It’ll go to the mechanic at that point.
Be careful of applying too much force. Last time I ran into this issue, I wound up ripping the sensor bung out of the exhaust manifold.
I’m not sure that’s an issue given the tight space. I don’t have enough room to really crank on it.
You could try some angel piss, aka Kroil in place of PB blaster. But my money would be on a combo of O2 sensor crowfoot socket, extension as necessary to get a big bar on it, and heat.
Run the car to get it good and hot, then try. Flare type O2 Sensor socket and a breaker bar.
Had a similar problem with a nox sensor on my truck. Used half a can of PB Blaster on it, thermal cycled it with a torch/garden hose, hit it with an air hammer, used the biggest breaker bar I could fit under the truck, none of it worked.
What eventually broke it loose was sticking a floor jack under the handle of the breaker bar and jacking until it moved. I’m pretty sure this is not OSHA approved and at one point my floor jack was sitting on two wheels, but I got it out and didn’t have to replace the whole section of exhaust.
I also had to cut the wires so I could get a big-ass socket on there. Anything with an open end was not going to cut it.
Wow!
I don’t even remotely have any advice for you but I just wanted to point out how impressive you guys all are when all that was necessary was for someone to ask for wrenching advice on just any random article on here and so many folks jump in to help.
Community . . . with a capital “C.”
Update: I reassembled everything and took a drive to use the car’s own heat to possibly loosen things. When the car turned over, it “coughed” a little bit because the battery had been disconnected for a few hours and the CPU was starting fresh – this was not unexpected. It’s done it before when I changed the battery.
The surprise was that the “check engine” light was gone. After a ten minute drive and stop at the local farmer’s market (which has been family owned since 1867!!) I started the car again and still no light.
On the drive home I went over what might be going on. Theory one – the code that the AutoZone scanner pulled was wrong. Theory two – all the banging and cranking on the top of sensor dislodged residue/build-up on the tip of the sensor allowing it to work properly. Theory three – the intake scope that feeds into the car needed to be removed to reach the sensor. Maybe the scoop was not seated properly so intake was “off” and setting off the error.
I’m going to sleep on it and see what the Wrenching Gods throw my way tomorrow. Thank you everyone. Hope your weekend gets off to a good start!
Legacy North American Automakers did fairly major year over year changes for dozens of years. Granted they were selling tons of them and things were leaded together when the panels were no good and you might end up with the wrong engine in a car. But other than that it went swimmingly.
That being said I’m not sure that China speed is necessary. I may not like Tesla but they just ran the model S for some extended number of years and with very minor plastic changes it continued to look fine. Same with the Charger and Grand Cherokee. I’d rather see good designs that can stand the test of time than Kia style cars that look good for a year or two but look terrible used.
I cannot wait until I can get into a new Xterra. I just hope it is long enough for a 6ft person to sleep in the back. it had tow hooks, skid plates, and at least a rear locker and is thousands less than the wrangler/4runner/broncos
If Nissan is going to make five new trucks, they need to out-truck other trucks. Go all in. Truck them. Truck everything. Show everyone you really give a truck.
They need to have something with a factory lift kit, so tall (at the absolute limit of regulations), that they offer a rope ladder accessory so you climb into it. Factor angry headlamps. Fang-shaped fog lights or DRLs to put in the grill. I want to see a factory skull decal as an option to be on the hood at delivery.
Just imagine rolling into the local Wal-mart, seeing some weebles trying to clamber up the rope ladder into the thing, with the Metal Gear Solid 2 theme playing in your head.
Auto retracting running boards would be cool, also.
I read your first paragraph and thought, “Better have factor angry headlights.”
Do we have any solid and reliable data on whether this works? If unacceptable quality or testing benchmarks are waived or loosened to achieve it? Do Chinese consumers, or consumers of Chinese cars in other countries, have the same expectations for reliability and durability that Americans do? Obviously cutting development times by 50+% is great if it can be done. But can it really?
It sort of works, yes. I mentioned below part of this is attitude, Chinese corporations generally have less layers of administrative friction, one guy rules with an iron fist, and if he says “Go” you Go, instead of having five layers of management all putting their own spin on things, getting Buy-In, Circling Back, and Ensuring Stakeholder Satisfaction.
Another one that just occurred to me is government interactions, if you are a CCP-approved company, happen much, much faster. Getting the permits and regulatory approvals for a new car factory in NA or Europe can take a decade. In China you’re either breaking ground two weeks after first filings, or are told to get bent in no uncertain terms within days, there’s no lingering about and filing endless lawsuits.
If something can cut through endless red tape and allow us to Build Stuff again, that would be great. I don’t see it happening though.
Permit reform is a very bipartisan issue, and something that Mayor Mamdani has pushed hard here in New York: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/25/zohran-mamdani-small-business-policies
I learned the other day that until he discontinued it, already licensed food vendors needed a separate license from a separate agency to sell ice cream in NYC.
Mamdani’s change vs Federal policy and Taylor Farms led to the news going viral with comparisons about how the “Ice Cream For Everyone vs Diarrhea Forever” meme becoming literally true.
RE: Door handles. Europe, North America, and Japan/Korea should be hanging their heads in shame that China of all places took the lead in banning motorized door handles. I’ve ranted about it many times before, but seriously, this is a very obvious regulatory win that really shouldn’t be difficult to punch through.
RE: Nissan- good on them. The longer I work in manufacturing, the less I understand why development cycles are so long. Our tools are better than ever before, and surprisingly the regulatory environment for things has gotten a lot better in the past 10 years (except in CA… but that’s a CA problem). “China Speed” is not exclusive to China, and there are some Western companies that manage to match or beat it (SpaceX definitely comes to mind here). Mostly it’s about adopting the attitude that You Can Just Do Things, which in practical terms means cut your meetings by about 90% and let the people who actually know the most about things just make the decisions about them without going through 15 layers of useless suits. There is no technical reason the car industry in the West can’t match Chinese speed, it’s purely an administrative problem.
RE: Volkswagen- speaking of administrative problems… I’m not sure VW can survive in it’s current form. Between all of the competing ownership interests, which are not the same thing as board interests, and the massive but unfocused portfolio that outside of Porsche (which has plenty of problems on it’s own) has no real identity, they don’t seem to have any actual path to success. At this point I think the best thing might be an organized break-up, letting each brand go do it’s own thing, maybe with technology-sharing agreements between them, but independent leadership.
But how will the “useless suits” collect their seven figure bonuses for doing nothing if they can be completely removed from the process? The ol’ white boys club needs their scotch and cuban cigars.
Honestly, if the suits just sat around drinking scotch and smoking cigars, it would be a massive improvement. But no, it’s “hands-on leadership” from a bunch of MBA hacks who know nothing about either bolts nor code, and a whole new round of “process guidance” every few months. I’d take a boss who fucked off and did nothing every day of the week over one who gets incompetently involved.
I cringe every time I get an email from a C-level now because I know two things in advance:
Most rushed car in history: The WW2 Bantam Jeep.
Winner winner,chicken dinner!
I seem to recall that in the early aughts a certain Japanese manufacturer run by a French guy dropped all sorts of new products at once and found itself with some quality issues.
If you have never seen a big band live, do yourself a favor and go. Like auto racing and hockey, watching a big band on TV doesn’t do it justice.
Saw Big Bad Voodoo Daddy live just 2 weeks ago. It was a real treat, they are well rehearsed pros.
My great uncle was a drummer in a big band. Life highlight was taking Grandma to see her little brother play in Ida Grove IA
What’s the most rushed car in history?
The Nissan Altima that just rocketed by you on a bald space saver doughnut.
For me it’s usually the Dodge Charger that just spent 6 miles driving up my ass despite seeing the 719348723048721034 cars in front of me.
To be fair, sometimes it’s a Dodge Ram with a massive lift kit and no muffler, or a Dodge Durango with the racing stripes.
Often times a diesel as well, rolling coal.
TBQ: Cimarronnnnnnnnnnnn
I like the way you think.