Writing a DV/PV plan you can actually afford

Small programs fail validation in one of two directions. Either they copy an OEM test matrix built for a 200,000-unit vehicle and run out of money, or they test only what the homologation authority demands and discover durability problems in the field.

A good plan sits between those, and it is built from the risk register rather than from a template.

List the ways the vehicle can fail in the customer's hands, rank them by severity and likelihood, and only then decide what evidence would retire each risk. Many risks are retired by analysis or by supplier data, not by a bespoke test.

The tests that remain are the ones worth paying for, and you can defend every line of the budget.

Run the tests that could force a design change first — structural, thermal, and pack abuse — even if the samples are rougher than you would like. Cosmetic durability and long-cycle testing can wait. The point of DV is to find out early, not to produce a tidy report.

Production validation answers a different question: can the supply chain and the assembly line repeatably build the thing DV proved. Treating PV as a second round of DV wastes the build and leaves process capability unproven at ramp.