Given how serious the situation is worldwide I suspect that there will be at least an attempt to speed things out as much as possible. I would be surprised if it actually would end up being a year and a half.
1.5 years is already very fast for a clinical trial. The average duration of clinical trials for "breakthrough" drugs is 5.0 years [1], compared to 8.0 years for drugs without that status. Plus O(1%) of trials actually make it to approval [2].
As much as many people like to hate on the pharmaceutical industry etc, there is a reason clinical trials take time. Yes, this is a pandemic and we must move quickly, but it's important to ensure that we don't repeat the recent mistakes made with the dengue vaccine in the Phillipines [1].
That vaccine made dengue significantly worse for those who had not been previously exposed to it. Situations like this are especially bad because they erode trust in vaccines, perpetuating the idea that all vaccines are bad/malicious when in fact a properly vetted vaccine is very safe.
If these first trials succeed, yes, we might get a vaccine mass-produced fast. But you're not looking at the downside risk: if these trials fail, and the next trials fail. This is research; by definition we don't know what will happen. It could turn out to be really hard to make a vaccine for this particular virus. In that case, even with well-funded efforts trying everything, it could take many years.
