China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) says it will accelerate the drafting and release of a dedicated 15th Five-Year Plan for the country’s intelligent connected new energy vehicle (NEV) industry, signalling that Beijing intends to keep the sector firmly at the centre of its industrial agenda through to 2030.
The commitment was made on July 27 by Guo Shougang, head of MIIT’s equipment industry department, at a media roundtable ahead of the World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference forum in Beijing. Rather than a subsidy or a one-off incentive, the announcement is a policy-direction signal – a statement of intent on where the government wants the world’s largest car market to go next.
According to Guo, the forthcoming plan will centre on several priorities. MIIT will push to accelerate breakthroughs in a batch of key core technologies, and speed up the development of major industry standards – including their international coordination and implementation, an acknowledgement that China wants its smart-driving rules to carry weight beyond its own borders.
The ministry also intends to further advance pilot programmes for “vehicle-road-cloud integration,” the connected-infrastructure backbone that underpins higher levels of autonomous driving.
To frame just how far the technology has already spread, Guo cited a set of adoption figures. Level 2 assisted driving now features in 70.5% of new vehicles sold, while navigation-on-autopilot functions have reached 34.2% penetration. Level 3 models – where the car, not the driver, is responsible for driving under defined conditions – are already operating in designated areas.
On the testing side, authorities have issued more than 20,000 test licences, opened over 57,000 km of roads for trials, and logged in excess of 220 million km of cumulative test mileage.
A dedicated five-year plan for smart, connected NEVs would formalise a shift that has been building for some time. China’s earlier five-year plans treated new energy vehicles largely as an electrification and manufacturing story; carving out a standalone blueprint for the intelligent, connected side reflects how decisively the competitive battleground has moved to software, autonomy and the data-and-infrastructure ecosystem around the car.
The move was read by markets as a clear vote of confidence in the sector, with Hong Kong-listed Chinese automakers rallying broadly in the session that followed – Li Auto among the biggest gainers, alongside advances for Geely, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Chery, GAC, Nio, Xpeng and BYD.
Full details of the plan, including timelines and specific targets, are expected as MIIT works towards its formal release.
15 years is too short, china should learn from MAlaysia NEP plan , started from 1970s continue till today and for eternity.
Absolutely love the big screen and minimal buttons approach in china cars..sweet~
Haters will hate..lulz