On 28 October, MIIT issued the Regulations on the Administration of Market Access of Road Motor Vehicles (draft for comments). Public comments are allowed until 27 November 2022.

The draft regulations strengthen the supervision on and raise the market access threshold of intelligent connected vehicles (ICV). Specifically:

  1. Access permission. The regulations stress that ICV products, in order to obtain market access licenses, shall follow the corresponding standards of function safety, cybersecurity, and data security, in addition to the standards and technical specifications in safety, environment protection, and energy saving. Meanwhile, ICV manufacturers shall establish, for their products, relevant systems for cybersecurity, data security, personal information protection, ICV cards security, and software updating management.
  2. Cyber and data security. Personal information and important data generated and collected by ICV manufacturers when sold or used in China, shall be stored within the country. If there is a need to provide these data overseas, the enterprises shall go through the security assessment organized by authorities, including CAC and MIIT, and file relevant information. In addition, ICV manufacturers shall regularly carry out network and data risk assessment of their vehicle products, strengthen risk monitoring, formulate emergency plans, and ensure rapid response when cyber security, data security or personal information security incidents occur, reporting to authorities including MIIT, MPS, CAC, etc.
  3. Autonomous driving. For ICVs with the function of autonomous driving, their manuals shall clearly inform consumers about the details of the autonomous driving function, such as its limitation, usage of the safety and emergency devices in the vehicles, driver’s responsibility, information of human-machine interaction devices, as well as the methods to start and terminate the autonomous driving function. Article 23 of the draft regulations also prohibit advertising false or misleading information, e.g. exaggerating the products’ performance or confusing the claimed manufacturers with the actual ones.
  4. Software upgrading (OTA). Road motor vehicle manufacturers shall report to and file with MIIT their software upgrading. A license shall be obtained by manufacturers before any software upgrade is made to the vehicle’s safety, environment protection, and energy saving.

The previous edition of the regulations, i.e., the Administrative measures for market access of road motor vehicle manufacturers and products, had come into force on 1 June 2019. Only three years later, the document was revised and upgraded from “administrative measures” to “regulations”, i.e. a higher administrative and legal level, indicating that government is strengthening the supervision of automobile products, especially the ICV.

Compared with the previous edition, the draft regulations, i) strengthen vehicle’s cyber and data security, and personal information protection, ii) remove the statement of “encouraging OEM”, which will result in higher access threshold in the automobile industry, and iii) put forward more requirements for the safety-in-use of vehicles, to adapt to the increasing popularity of aided driving functions. These changes, once implemented, will greatly impact the automobile industry. It is suggested that overseas manufacturers carefully analyse this document and contribute, when possible, to public comments.