The three-character phrase “sucheng che” (rushed cars) has become the hottest term in China's auto industry in the summer of 2026. The controversy started with an August 3 article in China Auto News titled “'Rushed Cars' Are Being Shut Down,” followed by statements from Beijing Hyundai, Geely, Xpeng and Chery — and Voyah CEO Lu Fang delivered the industry's most complete defense on August 12.
Time Is Not the Yardstick — Validation Is
Lu Fang's core argument: to judge whether a car is “rushed,” the only yardstick is not development time, but whether it has completed every required validation process in full. “If a car in development violates the laws, cuts corners, and slashes tests, that is a rushed car. But if its cycle is shortened, yet it has meticulously completed every test in the regulations and industry standards, then it should be called an 'efficient car.'”
He illustrated this with a transportation analogy: traveling from Wuhan to Beijing on foot takes half a year, by car 12 hours, by high-speed rail 5 hours — can this be called “rushed travel”? It's simply the progress of tools and methods. Applied to carmaking, the reason it can be fast is that platform and modularization allow mature powertrain architectures and three-electric systems to be reused across models, and that simulation testing can complete millions of kilometers of extreme-condition validation in the virtual world. “This is an efficiency revolution, not a quality compromise.”
Two Voices in the Industry
The opposing voice was represented by Beijing Hyundai. On July 22, Beijing Hyundai General Manager Li Fenggang said bluntly at the 2026 China Auto Forum that some brands, in pursuit of speed-to-market, are “using customers as test drivers” — failing to do the validation tests that should be done and creating potential risks for customers. “Cars are absolutely not fast-moving consumer goods.” On August 4, Beijing Hyundai led with the article “Reject Rushed Cars!”, declaring that “ultimate validation is reverence for life.”
The data layer is also fighting. One claim says that over 650 new cars hit the market in the first half of the year — more than 3.5 per day — prompting BYD Executive Vice President He Zhiqi to repost in shock: “This is completely insane. A single new car typically costs more than one billion yuan in investment and over two years of development, yet its buzz can't even last three months.” Li Yanwei, an expert at the China Automobile Dealers Association, corrected the record: only about 165 truly new models launched in the first half, with the 500–600 figure being a combined count of variants, configurations and derivatives. Even so, more than 0.9 new cars still reach market each day.
Geely says its new cars have an average development cycle of 3–5 years and accumulate over 100 million kilometers of vehicle testing; Xpeng, taking the G9L as an example, reports a complete 3-year development cycle covering 6.74 million kilometers of real-world road testing across 26 countries; Chery says the Fengyun T7 involved “two years of planning, three years of R&D” — “some time really cannot be saved.”
The Regulator Enters
The “rushed cars” issue has drawn a response from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). In January this year, MIIT issued the Admission Review Requirements for Road Motor Vehicle Production Enterprises and the corresponding product admission review requirements, explicitly stating that traditional-fuel vehicles should conduct no less than 30,000 kilometers of reliability verification testing, and that pure electric vehicles should likewise see their reliability requirements raised in step. Recently, the First Department of the Equipment Industry under MIIT also visited multiple automakers to carry out product safety assurance capability and production-consistency supervision inspections, randomly drawing sample vehicles and power batteries on-site for testing, with the focus on inspecting the safety assurance capability of intelligent connected vehicles and the maintenance of production admission conditions.
The substance of this debate is not “fast or slow” but “who defines the validation standard.” Carmakers want to use “complete processes” to redefine fast — translating “rushed” into “efficient”; the regulator draws a bottom line with 30,000-kilometer reliability tests and unannounced inspections. When the industry treats “speed” as a competitive weapon, validation becomes the last brake pad.
Voyah CEO Lu Fang: short development time does not equal a rushed car; the only yardstick is whether the validation process is complete; platform modularization + simulation testing = efficiency revolution, not quality compromise. He Zhiqi on the first-half figure of 650+ new cars vs Li Yanwei's correction of ~165 truly new models. Beijing Hyundai's Li Fenggang on “using customers as test drivers”; Geely's 3–5 year cycle and 100-million-km testing; Xpeng G9L's 3 years across 26 countries and 6.74 million km; Chery's Fengyun T7 “two years of planning, three years of R&D”. MIIT's January admission review requirements demanding ≥30,000 km of reliability verification for traditional cars; MIIT's recent on-site production-consistency supervision at automakers (deep via Guancha 2026-08-13).
Increment: Great Wall's Position — 36 Years Without a Rushed Car (2026-08-18)
On August 18, the rushed-cars debate welcomed its second chief-executive response. Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, posted that: “I can't say for others, but I dare say that Great Wall Motors has not made a single 'rushed car' in 36 years.”
The context of this remark is the industry debate that had been brewing for days: on August 12, Voyah Chairman Lu Fang published a long post arguing that “rushed cars” is a seriously misread concept — that the only yardstick for judging whether a car is rushed is whether it has completed every required validation process in full; that violating the laws, cutting corners, and slashing tests make a rushed car; and that a car with a shortened cycle but meticulously completed tests should be called an “efficient car.”
The earlier sections of this page recorded Lu Fang's “efficient car” thesis, the validation data disclosed by various automakers, and MIIT's 30,000-km admission requirement. This section adds Wei Jianjun's entry — he did not use the “efficient car” concept to redefine fast, but instead used the time ledger of “36 years without a rushed car” to make his position: Great Wall does not enter the “fast vs. slow” debate, but leans on history as its endorsement.
Lu Fang wants to redefine “rushed” as “efficient,” while Wei Jianjun simply declares he has never entered this race — “36 years without a rushed car” is an exemption card bought with time. The two chairmen head in opposite directions but their effects stack: one provides justification for “fast,” the other provides glory for “slow.” When automakers start publicly competing to disclaim the “rushed” label, it shows that this word has completed its semantic transition from technical discussion to brand credit.
Wei Jianjun posted that Great Wall Motors has not made a single “rushed car” in 36 years. Preceding this, on August 12, Voyah Chairman Lu Fang's long post argued that “rushed cars” is a seriously misread concept — the only yardstick is whether the validation process is complete; violating the laws, cutting corners, and slashing tests make a rushed car; a car with a shortened cycle but all tests completed should be called an “efficient car” (aggregation via Guancha 2026-08-18).