Audi has to speed up development of new models to meet a surge in demand for electric vehicles, especially in China, the German luxury carmaker’s CEO said in an interview with Reuters published on Thursday. 

“We are in the process of reviewing our entire development process,” Markus Duesmann said. 

The company needs new and shorter production cycles for the areas of connectivity and software. “And we are also looking more intensively at how this is done in China,” Duesmann said. 

“I expect that over time we will get close to a development time of 30 months,” he added. That compares with a current time of more like 48 months. 

The Volkswagen subsidiary has lagged behind fellow German carmakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the pivot towards battery-electric vehicles (BEV). 

“In 2030, the BEV share of the premium car market should already be between 60 and 70%, depending on the region,” Duesmann said. “We have to react when a market suddenly changes so quickly.” 

That shift could happen even sooner in China, but Audi’s sales performance in the world’s biggest car market has fallen short of expectations. The reason, Duesmann said, is that “we still don’t have the optimal vehicles on the market for Chinese needs.” 

From January to March, Audi sold just over 3,000 electric cars in China. 

Local heavyweight BYD, meanwhile, overtook the VW brand in the first quarter to become China’s top marque with a total market share of 11%, including traditional combustion-engine cars.