China pushes its development of intelligent vehicles

China will support the commercial application of Level 3 and above autonomous driving systems, as part of its broader push to bolster the development of intelligent connected vehicles, the country's top industry regulator said on Wednesday.

Xin Guobin, vice-minister of industry and information technology, said the ministry will unveil a new guidance regarding the standards of intelligent connected vehicles in the coming months, and accelerate efforts to formulate the standards concerning the integration of new energy vehicles with information and communication technology, intelligent transportation and smart cities.

Currently, autonomous driving is categorized from Level 0 to Level 5; the higher the level, the more intelligent the technology. Level 3 means conditional automation, in which a vehicle can drive by itself under certain conditions.

More efforts will be made to achieve breakthroughs in key self-driving technologies, including chips, high-precision sensors and operating systems, and speeding up the construction of intelligent transportation infrastructure, Xin added.