Overview
- The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology with the ministries of Public Security, Ecology and Environment and the State Administration for Market Regulation published a public consultation draft Saturday to tighten oversight of automotive innovation design and R&D testing.
- The draft mandates hard testing minima including at least one year of environmental adaptation testing that must cover “two winters and one summer” and reliability verification of no less than 30,000 kilometers.
- It draws explicit design red lines by banning full-hidden door handles and foldable or flexible displays, prohibiting use of bed-like or rotating seats while driving, and requiring physical actuators and clear markings for emergency controls.
- New submissions involving innovative designs must meet the technical guidelines from Jan. 1, 2027 and already-announced products must supply supplemental test materials by July 1, 2027 or face production halts and recalls, while regulators plan concentrated production-consistency inspections to prevent test-sample evasion.
- The move builds on earlier 2026 rules—on door-handle safety, L2 and L3/L4 automated-driving standards and tighter announcement reviews—and could raise costs and slow feature rollouts but aim to protect drivers by forcing fuller testing, clearer user guidance and stronger data-preservation duties for manufacturers.