National Autonomous Driving Standards Don't Mandate LiDAR, But Stringent Safety Requirements Spark Route Debate

On June 16, 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s (MIIT) Department of Science and Technology released a draft of the mandatory national standard titled “Safety Requirements for Automated Driving Systems in Intelligent and Connected Vehicles” for public comment. The standard applies to Level 3 (L3) and Level 4 (L4) automated driving systems. Notably, the draft does not mention specific technical solutions such as “LiDAR” or “dual redundancy,” focusing instead on establishing baseline safety performance requirements for the system. The standard sets clear metrics for perception capabilities: lateral detection must cover at least 9 meters to each side of the vehicle; forward detection distance increases with vehicle speed—requiring a minimum of 50 meters at 60 km/h, 100 meters at 90 km/h, and at least 130 meters at 120 km/h. Additionally, the system must detect and compensate for degraded perception performance caused by environmental factors such as rain, snow, fog, or strong glare. It must also avoid causing hazardous events even when a single perception component experiences a non-failure-related malfunction. Currently, mainstream technical approaches include pure vision-based systems and multi-sensor fusion (which may include LiDAR). Although the standard does not prescribe a specific technical path, industry experts note that pure vision systems face inherent physical limitations in scenarios such as extreme weather, low-light nighttime conditions, and detection of irregularly shaped obstacles, making it challenging to meet the aforementioned safety requirements. In contrast, LiDAR provides precise 3D information and offers effective redundancy when visual perception is impaired. In recent years, LiDAR costs have dropped significantly, with some products now priced below RMB 1,000 and already being integrated into mass-produced vehicles priced between RMB 100,000 and RMB 150,000—eroding the cost advantage previously held by pure vision solutions. In summary, while the national standard neither bans pure vision approaches nor mandates the use of LiDAR, its safety thresholds make multi-sensor fusion solutions—which offer superior environmental adaptability and redundancy—more practically viable.