Four ministries including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) have released for public comment a draft notice on strengthening management of automotive product innovation design and R&D test validation, targeting the industry habit of chasing fast product rollouts with thin verification.
The draft moves safety-risk assessment to the front of the type-approval process: innovative designs that fail assessment may not be fitted to vehicles, and a carmaker may not file for the Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products Announcement until all R&D test and validation items are complete. Reliability validation must cover no less than 30,000 km, and environmental adaptation validation must run at least one year and include two winters and one summer, with real-vehicle testing mandatory for innovative designs.
The draft also bans gimmick features. Fully concealed door handles are prohibited outright - professional tests show electronically released handles pop out in only 67% of side impacts versus 98% for mechanical ones. Zero-gravity, rotating or fold-flat-into-bed seats must be restricted by technical means so they cannot be used while driving.
On marketing, all automakers are barred from false, exaggerated or misleading claims, from demonstrating vehicle functions in traffic-law-violating scenarios, and from inducing drivers to ignore basic safety responsibility. The draft follows an October 15 meeting at which MIIT and three other ministries gathered more than 30 mainstream carmakers, with marketing normalization a core topic.
Image: Next-generation EV charging infrastructure. Source: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).
