On September 11, nine government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), jointly issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Smart and Connected New Energy Vehicle Industry," a landmark document that outlines a roadmap for China's automotive industry transformation over the next five years. On the same day, the MIIT held a press conference to brief the public on the industry's development status.
At the conference, Guo Shougang, Director of the Equipment Industry Division No. 1 of the MIIT, stated that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's smart and connected new energy vehicle industry built a certain competitive advantage globally, marking solid progress in becoming an automotive powerhouse. He added that the "15th Five-Year Plan" period remains a window of transformative opportunity for global smart and connected new energy vehicle development, with vast prospects and a promising future for China's industry.
Ji Xuehong, Director of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center at North China University of Technology, told reporters that China's smart and connected vehicles are transitioning from the electrification stage to the "second half" characterized by intelligence. The industry has moved from scale leadership to technological leadership and must now aim for brand leadership. He emphasized three key directions for industry development: adhering to market-oriented and rule-of-law principles; prioritizing safety and balancing innovation with security; and strengthening openness with a global outlook while enhancing industrial resilience to maintain self-sufficiency and control.
The "1+4" Target Framework
The Plan proposes development goals for 2030 based on a "1+4" structure. The primary goal ("1") is to consolidate the competitive advantages of China's entire smart and connected new energy vehicle industry chain, advancing the nation into the ranks of global automotive powerhouses. This involves achieving domestic new energy passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles accounting for 70% and 40% of total new vehicle sales in their respective segments, with vehicles equipped with autonomous driving functions achieving large-scale application.
The four supplementary goals ("4") cover technological advancement, industrial structure, international development, and economic and social benefits. On technology, average fuel consumption for passenger cars and average electricity consumption for pure electric passenger cars are targeted at approximately 3.3 liters and 11.5 kWh per 100 kilometers, respectively, with high-level autonomous driving realized on highways, urban expressways, and certain city roads. On industrial structure, labor productivity across the industry is set to rise by 15% compared to 2025 levels, fostering several complete vehicle manufacturers in the global top 10 and component suppliers in the global top 100.
On internationalization, corporate global operational capabilities are to be continuously enhanced, elevating the reputation of Chinese auto brands and strengthening China's voice in setting international standards and regulations. On economic and social benefits, the automotive industry's role as a pillar of the national economy will be further cemented, achieving carbon peaking before 2030 and accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of the supply chain, with safety performance of autonomous driving-equipped vehicles significantly surpassing that of human drivers.
Guo Shougang noted at the conference that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, annual sales of new energy vehicles in China surged from 1.367 million to 16.49 million units, with a compound annual growth rate of 65%. The adoption rate of combined driver assistance features in domestic passenger cars rose from 16.2% to 64.9%. Building on this foundation, the Plan outlines 17 key tasks across five areas: enhancing technological innovation capabilities, optimizing and upgrading the industrial structure, promoting cross-sector integration, establishing a scientific and efficient industry governance system, and opening new prospects for global industrial cooperation. It also deploys four major engineering projects and three key action initiatives.
Prudent Advancement of Autonomous Driving Scale Deployment
The Plan explicitly calls for "actively and prudently promoting the large-scale application of autonomous driving technology" and outlines initiatives for the adoption of smart and connected new energy vehicles, including detailed measures for scaled autonomous driving use, "vehicle-road-cloud integration," and the widespread deployment of new energy heavy-duty trucks.
Ji Xuehong believes the phrase "actively and prudently promoting the large-scale application of autonomous driving technology" in the Plan addresses real-world concerns. "If we chase speed excessively and push forward too quickly, consumers may blindly rely on the technology and relax their own control over the vehicle, creating significant safety risks and accident hazards. Autonomous driving is a gradual technological process, and its rollout should align with the pace of technology maturity."
Currently, the commercial application of autonomous driving is advancing along a path from lower to higher levels of automation and from limited to open scenarios. L2-level systems are entering a phase of widespread adoption, while L3/L4-level systems are transitioning from technical demonstrations to commercial pilots. In December 2025, the MIIT approved the first batch of pilot permits for two L3-level vehicle models, followed by China's first dedicated license plate for L3 autonomous driving in Chongqing, with Beijing also issuing initial plates for L3 highway autonomous vehicles.
Recently, relevant authorities formulated and released mandatory national standards, including "Safety Requirements for Autonomous Driving Systems of Smart and Connected Vehicles" and "Safety Requirements for Combined Driver Assistance Systems of Smart and Connected Vehicles." Zhu Meina, Deputy Director of the Standards Management Department at the State Administration for Market Regulation, pointed out that these two mandatory standards establish safety baselines for autonomous driving and combined driver assistance systems at the national level for the first time, helping consumers understand system capabilities and usage boundaries to reduce misuse risks.
Zhu Keli, Founding Dean of the Guoyan New Economy Research Institute, told reporters that the release of the "Safety Requirements for Autonomous Driving Systems of Smart and Connected Vehicles" fills a gap in mandatory safety specifications for high-level autonomous driving in China, transforming safety requirements from corporate self-regulation into institutional hard constraints with strong practical implications. "For the risk of human-machine takeover at L3, hard requirements are imposed on driver status monitoring and system status alerts, guiding users to understand system limitations and reduce safety hazards from cognitive mismatches. For L4 vehicles that do not require human takeover, greater emphasis is placed on the system's redundant design and fault-handling strategies, clearly defining minimum risk maneuvers when anomalies occur," Zhu Keli said.
Upgraded Governance: Safety and Capacity Management
The Plan elevates "safety as a top priority" to one of its five core principles. In the technological realm, it proposes continuously enhancing the safety performance of power batteries and strengthening technical deployments for "vehicle-road-cloud integration" with coordinated autonomous driving, multi-dimensional safety testing and evaluation, and safety monitoring for market access and road operations.
The Plan also emphasizes strengthening safety standard development. It calls for continuous revisions to comprehensive safety standards covering functional safety, expected functional safety, cybersecurity, data security, and road traffic safety, as well as improving electrical safety standards for post-collision safety, power battery safety, drive motor system safety, and charging and swapping safety. It also aims to accelerate the release and implementation of autonomous driving safety standards, such as those for autonomous driving systems and automatic parking systems, while evaluating the effectiveness of mandatory safety standards implementation.
Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the MIIT, bluntly stated at a State Council Information Office press conference on August 26 that "some 'radical' innovative designs have been installed in vehicles without sufficient experimental verification, leading to certain automotive quality and autonomous driving safety incidents that have drawn social attention." Guo Shougang also stressed at the September 11 conference the need to strictly prohibit products that have not undergone full testing and verification from entering the market and to intensify supervision and inspection of production consistency.
The Plan also introduces "strengthening capacity early warning and regulation," requiring strict implementation of the "Provisions on Investment Management in the Automotive Industry," tightening conditions for new independent new energy vehicle enterprise projects, and promoting lawful mergers, reorganizations, and cross-regional integrations among automotive companies. It also aims to facilitate the orderly exit of obsolete and low-efficiency capacity through market-based and rule-of-law approaches, while reinforcing capacity early warning, regulation, and management for power batteries.
The inclusion of "capacity early warning and regulation" in the Plan reflects ongoing pressures on industry capacity utilization. Ji Xuehong commented, "The overall industry currently faces oversupply, so rational planning is essential to avoid low-level duplication, vicious competition, and the crowding out of quality players by inferior ones. Thus, capacity monitoring, early warning, and mitigation are necessary." He further advised automakers to recognize the fierce and intense nature of competition, manage product launch timing, plan product strategy and cash flow carefully, and compete on quality, technology, and differentiation rather than merely cutting prices. For component suppliers, he urged avoiding vicious competition, mastering core technologies, building resilience, and supporting OEMs in offshore expansion strategies.
Global Cooperation and Enhanced International Capabilities
The Plan designates "opening new prospects for global industrial cooperation" as one of its five key tasks, explicitly proposing to build brands and integrate into local markets overseas, upgrading from product exports to brand globalization and from single-trade activities to full value-chain collaboration.
Guo Shougang noted at the conference that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's automotive exports achieved leapfrog growth, exceeding 6 million vehicles in 2025, with new energy vehicle exports surpassing 2 million units, ranking first globally for three consecutive years. He also pointed out new challenges in internationalization, including rising trade barriers, higher localization requirements, and increased overseas compliance costs, necessitating a shift from merely pursuing export scale to enhancing global operational capabilities.
The Plan outlines multiple measures: supporting companies in building robust international marketing and after-sales service systems; enhancing overseas local operational capabilities; encouraging coordinated overseas expansion by complete vehicle and component manufacturers to establish secure and controllable global supply chains; deepening cooperation with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative in the new energy vehicle sector; and participating in the formulation of international standards and regulations to elevate the global influence of Chinese solutions.
In Ji Xuehong's view, enhancing openness and going global is one of the essential future directions. "Internationalization is not just about product exports; it is a comprehensive output of brands, technologies, standards, and services. In the globalization process, special attention should be paid to strengthening industrial resilience and maintaining self-sufficiency and control. While actively integrating into the global market, we must also hold the line on core technologies and supply chain security."
China's smart and connected vehicle industry is at a new starting point. Technological capability, safety baselines, and globalization capacity will be decisive variables in whether the industry can truly transition from scale leadership to brand leadership, and the execution intensity over the next five years will provide the answer.