Is anyone familiar? I've been wondering about this. For example, how much did it cost in research & development to bring the Camaro from initial conception to just prior to launch?

I'd imagine the cost of all the engineers, designers and everyone else would be enormous.

 

I'd say about $1 billion for a brand new, from scratch architecture. About $200 million to develop a product off of an existing architecture.

 

I think I've heard that as a rough estimate too. I don't know if that includes things like setting up production tooling and factories though, because those are also enormous costs.

 

I'm just guessing here, but that seems low on both counts. $200 million seems more like a mid-cycle freshening than a new car (e.g. I can't see it costing $200m to make a Malibu out of an Aura).

And of course it depends what you're including in it. Powertrain is almost as expensive as the rest of the car ... are you designing new engines or transmissions? Do you have to build/renovate factories?

I recall the number for the Ford Contour program back in the 1990s was $6 billion. I'm sure that included some factories and tailoring to individual markets, but still, that's a ton more than $1 billion.

 

It may be a lot cheaper these days because most development is done on computers now.

I think it's fair to say that costs probably vary pretty wildly depending on the type of vehicle.

 

Plus wasn't the Contour designed to be a "global" car, to be built in factories around the world? That was a very large scale project.