China proposes optional cyan running lights for self-driving cars
The draft rule would bar the kind of blue lights Chinese carmakers have put on assisted-driving cars since 2022 and reportedly dazzle other drivers.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT, 工业和信息化部) has proposed optional cyan running lights to show other road users when a car is driving itself, and a ban on such lights for cars whose systems only assist a human driver. The cyan lights on such vehicles would be in addition to standard headlights, turn indicators and brake lights.
The draft revision of a mandatory national lighting standard calls it an automated driving system (ADS) marker lamp. Only vehicles with Level 3 automation or higher, what China calls conditional automation, may fit one. It must light up automatically while that system is driving and stay dark under Level 2 driver assistance, the draft says.
That would rule out the blue lights Chinese carmakers have put on production cars since August 2022, the Economic Observer (经济观察网) reported. In July, an auto standards research institute said the lights, which show that a car's driver-assistance system is on, can dazzle other drivers at night and make the car a target for cutting in and tailgating, and that the current standard in principle doesn't allow lamps it doesn't define, Xinhua (新华社) reported.
MIIT is taking comments on the proposal until Dec. 19. The drafters propose that the standard take effect Jan. 1, 2028, with three more years for models already approved, their explanatory note says. Neither document says what would happen to cars already sold.
The lamp rule follows mandatory standards for Level 2 driver assistance, taking effect Jan. 1, 2027, and for Level 3 and Level 4 systems, from July 1, 2027. Since the start of 2026, 70% of new passenger cars in China have come with Level 2 driver assistance, Xinhua reported in July.
UN Regulation No. 48, which the Chinese standard is modeled on, has no marker-lamp requirement, the drafters wrote, and UN working groups are still studying the lights, the institute said, according to Xinhua. In the US, Mercedes-Benz said in December 2023 it had won permits in California and Nevada for turquoise marker lights.
Sources: 工业和信息化部 MIIT (Equipment Industry Department I), 工业和信息化部 MIIT: GB 4785 draft (征求意见稿), 工业和信息化部 MIIT: GB 4785 explanatory note (编制说明), 经济观察网 Economic Observer, 新华社 Xinhua [1], [2], 新华社 Xinhua (gov.cn), Mercedes-Benz Group (media release)
Editor: Ian Lamont
