The new development of a vehicle becomes necessary when a vehicle which is already in production no longer meets the changing demands of the market or legal regulations even after cosmetic model changes have been undertaken. In addition, a changed marketing strategy can also lead to the development of new model concepts, for example, Large Limousines, Multi-Purpose-Vehicles or Sports-Utility-Vehicles.
The development of a vehicle begins with pre-development, followed by the development for serial production, which involves the preparation for serial introduction.
At the beginning of vehicle development, the development of the market is forecasted from the point of view of different scenarios. This takes place under the consideration of influencing factors such as man, economy, regulations, raw material situation, availability of energy as well as competition.
The development targets for the new vehicle project are formulated based on the expected results which include the framework of costs and upper limits for investment, development costs, special costs, primary markets, total volume, deadlines and quality targets. 
Once the decision for a particular vehicle concept is taken, the pre-development phase follows, which involves theoretical investigations and computational simulations for detailed design. Parallel to the proposals from the designers, the essential technical details are processed under consideration of the already specified basic vehicle parameters. This also involves package estimation.
The testing of newly developed constructional groups are first carried out on test benches or test vehicles consisting of older models. The construction of the first hand-made prototype takes place at the end of the pre-development phase, if the outer skin of the vehicle has been defined for the most part. 
The following section deals with the process of development of the outer skin or body of the vehicle.