China grants first conditional L3 autonomous driving vehicle licenses to Changan and BA

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) recently granted the first batch of conditional Level 3 (L3) autonomous driving vehicle licenses to Changan and BAIC, allowing their models to operate on designated highways and urban expressways in Chongqing and Beijing, marking a shift from test-only to formal road deployment for L3 vehicles.

The first model, the Changan SC7000AAARBEV electric sedan, can perform autonomous driving in a single lane on highways and urban expressways under traffic congestion, with a maximum speed of 50 km/h. Currently, this function is restricted to designated sections in Chongqing, including the Inner Ring Expressway, the New Inner