China's MIIT to Accelerate 15th Five-Year Plan for Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicles

On July 27, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) held a media roundtable for the 2026 World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference. Guo Shougang, director of the First Department of Equipment Industry at MIIT, stated that the ministry will accelerate the drafting and issuance of the 15th Five-Year Plan for the intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry, speed up breakthroughs in a number of key core technologies, accelerate the development, international coordination, and implementation of key standards, and deepen the application pilots of vehicle-road-cloud integration, production access, and road operation pilots, to promote the establishment of an ecosystem that runs through the entire industrial chain.

Guo Shougang outlined the positive results already achieved in China's intelligent connected vehicle industry. In terms of technological innovation, high-computing-power intelligent driving chips and cockpit-driving integrated chips are accelerating iterative upgrades; core components such as high-performance LiDAR and intelligent wire-controlled chassis are being installed in vehicles in volume; and centralized electronic and electrical architectures are rapidly moving from R&D to mass production. In pilot demonstrations, more than 20,000 test plates have been issued nationwide, over 57,000 kilometers of test roads have been opened, and cumulative test mileage has exceeded 220 million kilometers. The 20 vehicle-road-cloud integration pilot cities have deployed more than 60,000 sets of various intelligent devices, serving over 100,000 vehicles. In market applications, since 2026, the penetration rate of L2-level combined driving assistance functions in passenger cars has reached 70.5%, the penetration rate of NOA (navigation-based driving assistance) functions in passenger cars has reached 34.2%, and the first batch of L3-level conditional autonomous driving models have begun road operations in specific areas.

Guo Shougang pointed out that the intelligent connected vehicle industry is at a critical stage of large-scale development, and ensuring product quality and safety is the top priority. Recently, through the formulation and release of a series of mandatory national standards for combined driving assistance and autonomous driving systems, the ministry will further guide enterprises to improve their product technology capabilities and safety levels. The United Nations Global Technical Regulation on Automated Driving Systems (ADS GTR) and a series of policy regulations and standard achievements, including those for combined driving assistance systems, have been successively released and implemented, marking a new stage in China's intelligent connected vehicle development with more robust policies and regulations, a more complete standard system, and deeper international cooperation.

The 2026 World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference is planned to be held from October 21 to 23, 2026, in Yizhuang, Beijing, under the theme "Gathering Wisdom, Connecting Unlimited – Steadily Advancing into the Era of Autonomous Driving," aiming to promote open, win-win, and high-quality development of the global intelligent connected vehicle industry.