China Proposes Stricter Rules for Vehicle Design and Testing

China News Service reported that four departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, published a draft consultation notice proposing comprehensive requirements to address issues such as rushed product rollouts and insufficient testing validation across the automotive industry. Under the proposed draft measures, vehicle manufacturers would be prohibited from applying substandard innovative designs to vehicles and barred from filing for the official catalogue of road motor vehicle production enterprises and products before finishing every research, development, and testing verification project. The draft document also establishes a negative prohibition list and mandates concrete testing verification standards, proposing that vehicle innovation design validation must include real-vehicle tests, supplemented as needed by bench trials or simulation analyses. Specific design curbs are proposed in the consultation draft, which directly requires a ban on equipping vehicles with fully hidden door handles that consumers had frequently criticized. Regarding promotional conduct, the draft notice strictly dictates that companies must not conduct false, exaggerated, or misleading publicity, must not depict scenarios that violate road traffic regulations to showcase product features, and must not induce drivers to neglect driving safety responsibilities.