In China, buyers can receive a brand-new custom electric vehicle in just 18 days, reports People's Daily Online.

Blue bodywork, 21-inch wheels, brown interior, sporty trim — car enthusiast Mr. Zhang selected all the desired options in the mobile app, pressed "confirm," and the Avatr plant in Chongqing immediately put the order into production.

Behind this is the "flexible manufacturing" model that China has been actively developing recently. "Customers choose everything they need on their smartphone, while hundreds of production commands are automatically generated on the assembly lines," explains Li Tian, planning manager at Avatr.

Traditional automobile manufacturing follows the principle of "forecast production — sell from stock": factories planned output months ahead based on market forecasts. "Just five years ago, waiting for a car with custom specifications took at least two to three months," recalls Wang Rui, deputy chief engineer for technology planning at Changan. "But today we build exactly what the consumer wants."

The secret of "flexible manufacturing" lies in the high degree of automation of production lines. Robots "read" the data of each vehicle and automatically reconfigure grippers, change welding programs and press dies. Thanks to this, one line can continuously assemble vehicles with different wheelbases and different models.

In the paint shop, an intelligent planning system precisely calculates the sequence of colors and the cost of switching between shades. In the assembly shop, automated carts with parts drive themselves to the right vehicle — achieving deep synchronization between supplies and the production flow.

But such phenomenal efficiency is not only the merit of "smart" factories. A decisive role is played by a dense local supplier network. In Chongqing alone, more than 1,200 local parts manufacturers form a vibrant, responsive industrial cluster, where material preparation and finished-product logistics are coordinated with each other to within hours.

The paradigm shift — from "the consumer adapts to the factory" to "the production chain adapts to the consumer" — makes custom ordering no longer an expensive and time-consuming indulgence. This shift dramatically improves the customer experience when buying Chinese electric vehicles and significantly strengthens their competitiveness in the global market.