I think you should be able to drive a scout up to a lab and steal info, you get a choice of which completed research topic they have to steal. Then the scout has to transmit the info, which takes time(bigger the topic the more time it takes). Then if you get it all, you have to decrypt it which would take anywhere from 1/4 the time to 1/2 the time to research. Also you can choose another topic once the first is stolen, until the scout is destroyed. There could be a limit per vehicle (battery life?). Or instead of a scout there could be a new vehicle, and scout or new vehicle, you should be able to upgrade transmission speed.