China is taking a huge regulatory leap:

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has approved the first two passenger car models for L3 autonomous driving.

This means that in clearly limited situations, the car is allowed to take over, but the driver remains on call – so it's "hands off," but not "brain off."

Details

🇨🇳 Go for two brands: The approval goes to state-owned manufacturers Changan Automobile (with the Deepal SL03) and BAIC (with the Arcfox Alpha S).

🚦 Pilot in traffic jams: Changan gets the green light for an L3 electric sedan that takes over in defined congestion scenarios on expressways, sticking to its lane up to 50 km/h.

🛣️ Arcfox plays faster: BAIC’s model is cleared for highway sections, where it can drive up to 80 km/h in L3 mode, also only on selected routes.

⚡ Component boom: Core components like LiDAR sensors, high-performance chips, and steer-by-wire/brake-by-wire systems are now seeing a boost, as they are essential for reliable L3 implementation.

⚖️ Next industry step: The state is signalling that L3 should move out of the perpetual demo phase and into a regulated, liable reality, with close supervision instead of a "free-for-all" approach.

The liability breakthrough

The L3 approval marks a major regulatory breakthrough, as China is officially shifting liability from humans to machines.