China City Mandates 10,000 km Safety Tests for L4 Self-Driving on Highways

Chongqing Sets New Bar for Autonomous Highway Testing

Chongqing, one of China's largest municipalities and a major automotive hub, has unveiled comprehensive new regulations governing Level 3 and above autonomous vehicle testing on public highways. The rules, jointly issued on May 7 by the city's Economic and Information Commission, Public Security Bureau, and Transportation Commission, require L4-and-above autonomous vehicles to complete a minimum of 10,000 kilometers of cumulative safety testing before gaining highway access — setting one of the most demanding benchmarks in China's rapidly evolving self-driving landscape.

The regulation, formally titled the 'Chongqing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Highway Testing Management Rules (Trial),' aims to close a critical gap in China's autonomous driving testing framework: high-speed highway scenarios. Until now, most Chinese cities have focused testing permissions on urban roads, leaving highway environments — where speeds are higher and reaction times shorter — relatively unregulated.

Key Facts at a Glance

• L4+ vehicles must accumulate at least 10,000 km of individual vehicle safety mileage before highway testing
• L3 vehicles require a minimum of 2,000 km cumulative batch mileage and 200 km per individual vehicle
• Testing covers passenger, commercial, and specialized work vehicles
• All vehicles must first complete simulation, closed-course, and urban road testing with full documentation
• A 3-phase progressive testing system moves from escort-vehicle-supported runs to fully independent highway driving
• Test operators must pass third-party safety reviews before applying for highway permits

Why Highway Testing Rules Matter Now

Highway driving represents one of the most commercially promising — and technically demanding — use cases for autonomous vehicles. Companies like Waymo, Cruise, Pony.ai, and Baidu Apollo have invested billions of dollars in perfecting urban self-driving, but long-haul highway autonomy remains a frontier with enormous implications for logistics, freight, and passenger travel.

Unlike city streets, highways present unique challenges: sustained high speeds of 60–120 km/h, complex merging and lane-change dynamics, and limited opportunities for safe fallback maneuvers. A failure at highway speed is far more likely to result in a severe or fatal accident compared to low-speed urban incidents.

Chongqing's decision to formalize highway testing standards reflects a broader recognition across the global autonomous driving industry that separate, rigorous frameworks are needed for high-speed scenarios. In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has taken a comparatively hands-off regulatory approach, relying largely on voluntary safety reporting. Chongqing's prescriptive mileage thresholds represent a starkly different philosophy — one rooted in quantifiable safety prerequisites.

Breaking Down the Mileage Requirements

The regulation draws a clear distinction between SAE Level 3 (conditional automation, where a human driver must remain ready to intervene) and Level 4 (high automation, where the vehicle handles virtually all driving tasks within its operational domain).

For L3 vehicles, the requirements are relatively accessible:

• 2,000 km cumulative safety mileage across the same batch of vehicles
• 200 km minimum per individual test vehicle
• Completion of simulation, closed-course, and urban road pre-tests

For L4 and above, the bar rises dramatically:

• 10,000 km cumulative safety mileage per individual vehicle
• Full pre-testing across simulation, closed-course, and urban environments
• Comprehensive test reports submitted for each phase

This 5x multiplier in mileage requirements for L4 vehicles acknowledges the fundamental difference in risk profile. When a vehicle operates without expecting human intervention, the margin for error shrinks to near zero. Chongqing's regulators are essentially demanding that L4 systems prove themselves across a much larger dataset of real-world driving before they encounter the high-stakes highway environment.

A 3-Phase Progressive Approach to Safety

Perhaps the most innovative aspect of Chongqing's new rules is the graduated testing framework that moves autonomous vehicles through 3 distinct phases of highway operation. This approach mirrors how human drivers progress from supervised learning to independent driving — but applies the concept at an industrial scale.

• Phase 1: The autonomous test vehicle operates with safety escort vehicles both in front and behind, creating a protective buffer from regular traffic. This stage focuses on baseline system validation at highway speeds.
• Phase 2: The front escort vehicle is removed, leaving only a rear safety vehicle. The autonomous system must now handle forward-facing decisions — including navigation, obstacle detection, and speed management — with reduced support.
• Phase 3: The test vehicle operates independently without any escort vehicles, functioning as a standard participant in highway traffic. This final phase represents true real-world validation.

This graduated model addresses a common criticism of autonomous vehicle testing: the gap between controlled demonstrations and genuine road readiness. By requiring companies to earn their way through each phase, Chongqing's framework creates multiple checkpoints where regulators can assess safety performance before granting expanded permissions.

How Chongqing Compares to Global AV Testing Standards

Chongqing's approach sits at an interesting intersection of global regulatory philosophies. Here is how it stacks up against other major autonomous driving jurisdictions:

• California (USA): Requires companies to hold a testing permit from the DMV, submit annual disengagement reports, and carry $5 million in insurance. No specific mileage thresholds are mandated before highway testing.
• Germany: Enacted the world's first national L4 autonomous driving law in 2021, focusing on operational design domains rather than cumulative mileage. Highway testing is permitted under strict conditions.
• Beijing (China): Has its own tiered testing system for urban roads but has been slower to open highway corridors. Chongqing's new rules could serve as a template for other Chinese cities.
• UK: The Automated Vehicles Act 2024 establishes a safety framework but delegates much of the technical standard-setting to future regulatory bodies.

Compared to California's relatively permissive system — where companies like Waymo and Cruise have logged millions of highway miles with minimal pre-qualification — Chongqing's mileage-first approach is far more prescriptive. However, it also provides clearer benchmarks for companies to target, potentially reducing ambiguity in the approval process.

Industry Context: China's Autonomous Driving Ambitions

Chongqing's new regulations arrive at a pivotal moment for China's autonomous driving sector. The country is home to some of the world's most aggressive AV programs, led by companies like Baidu, Pony.ai, WeRide, AutoX, and emerging players backed by automakers such as BYD, NIO, and Geely.

China's central government has signaled strong support for intelligent connected vehicles as a strategic industry. In November 2023, four government ministries jointly launched pilot programs for L3 and L4 vehicles on public roads in select cities. Chongqing — already designated as a national pilot zone for intelligent connected vehicles — is now extending that framework to the highway environment.

The economic stakes are enormous. China's intelligent connected vehicle market is projected to exceed $150 billion by 2030, according to estimates from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. Highway autonomy is critical for unlocking the commercial trucking and logistics segments, which represent some of the highest-value applications for self-driving technology.

Chongqing itself is a strategic location for this push. The city is a major manufacturing base for automakers including Changan Automobile and hosts a growing cluster of smart vehicle and component suppliers. Establishing a clear, rigorous testing framework positions the city as a destination for companies seeking to validate their highway-capable systems.

What This Means for the Global AV Industry

For Western autonomous driving companies and investors watching China's regulatory evolution, Chongqing's rules carry several important implications:

• Standardization pressure: As more Chinese cities adopt quantitative testing benchmarks, pressure may grow on Western regulators to establish comparable thresholds — or justify why they have not.
• Market access signals: Companies seeking to deploy autonomous vehicles in China will need to plan for substantial pre-qualification testing, adding time and cost to market entry strategies.
• Safety data competition: The emphasis on cumulative mileage creates a natural advantage for well-funded companies that can afford to run large fleets over extended periods. Smaller startups may face barriers.
• Cross-border learnings: The 3-phase progressive model could influence regulatory design in Europe and North America, where graduated testing frameworks remain relatively underdeveloped.

Looking Ahead: The Road to Commercial Highway Autonomy

Chongqing's new testing management rules are explicitly framed as a stepping stone toward commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles on highways. The regulation's stated goal is to 'accelerate the commercialization of autonomous driving technology' while maintaining safety controls.

The next milestones to watch include which companies apply for and receive highway testing permits under the new framework, how quickly they progress through the 3-phase system, and whether other major Chinese cities — including Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen — adopt similar or even stricter standards.

For the global autonomous driving industry, Chongqing's move underscores an emerging reality: the regulatory race is now as important as the technology race. Companies that can navigate complex, jurisdiction-specific testing requirements efficiently will hold a decisive advantage as the market shifts from pilot programs to commercial scale. The 10,000 km benchmark for L4 highway testing is not just a number — it is a signal that the era of casual autonomous vehicle experimentation is giving way to an era of structured, accountable deployment.