China Automotive Information Institute Recommends Expanding L3 Autonomous Driving Pilots as Urban NOA Gains Traction

The China Automotive Information & Data Center recently released the "2025 Urban NOA Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) Research Report," recommending an accelerated rollout of a tiered management roadmap for autonomous driving. The report calls for clearly defining functional boundaries, safety responsibilities, and market entry standards, as well as amending the Road Traffic Safety Law to clarify liability in accidents involving autonomous vehicles. It also urges expanding pilot programs for Level 3 (L3) and higher autonomous driving systems in representative urban clusters and specific scenarios, promoting tiered and scenario-based applications to accelerate technology validation and commercial model implementation. According to the report, from January to November 2025, sales of passenger vehicles equipped with urban Navigation on Autopilot (NOA) functionality reached 3.129 million units, accounting for 15.1% of total insured passenger vehicle sales. Notably, mainstream models priced under RMB 300,000 represented over 68.9% of these sales. Currently, more than 28.8% of mainstream automotive brands have launched NOA-equipped models, with the feature rapidly moving downmarket from premium segments into the RMB 150,000–200,000 price range and expected to further penetrate the RMB 100,000–150,000 segment. Urban NOA is projected to become a standard ADAS feature by 2030.