Hong Kong Stock Concept Tracking | Key Step in L3 Autonomous Driving Implementation, Agency Says L3 Official Entry Node Is Expected to Arrive After 2026 (with concept stocks)

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on December 15, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially announced entry permits for China's first batch of L3 conditional autonomous driving models. The two models, each adapted to urban congestion and highway sections, will be tested on the road in designated areas in Beijing and Chongqing, marking a key step in China's L3 autonomous driving from the testing stage to commercial application.

“The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has officially licensed the Changan brand and Jihu L3 autonomous driving model products with conditions, indicating that China's autonomous vehicle industry is accelerating from 'technical verification' to a new stage of 'mass production application'.” Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that the official licensing of autonomous vehicle products reflects the government's wisdom in supporting innovation and exploration. As a complex system across disciplines and fields, intelligent connected vehicles not only rely on technological breakthroughs, but also require commercial closed-loop verification. “For the industry, licensed autonomous vehicle products are not only an authoritative recognition of technological maturity, but also a strong response to the deep expectations of all sectors of society about future smart mobility. The implementation of L3 level autonomous driving is a systematic project covering multi-agent collaboration such as vehicles, components, software algorithms, communications, and data services.”

From pilot to entry, work related to L3 commercialization has been in progress for more than a year. In June of last year, nine consortia were determined to enter the pilot project in accordance with the “Notice on Launching Pilot Work on Intelligent Connected Vehicle Access and Road Traffic”. Nine of the car companies were seven passenger car companies, including Changan, BYD, Guangzhou Automobile, SAIC, BAIC Blue Valley, FAW, and NIO, as well as two commercial vehicle companies, SAIC Hongyan and Yutong. The main users of the two L3 models this time are Chongqing Changan Auto Connect Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing Travel Auto Service Co., Ltd., and the cities where the vehicles are operated are Chongqing and Beijing, respectively. However, it is worth noting that the aforementioned “Notice” strictly regulates the operating area and maximum speed of the Changan Deep Blue and BAIC Jihu models.

“The application for the L3 model has been approved” can be seen a few months ago. In September of this year, eight departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the “Automobile Industry Steady Growth Work Plan (2025-2026)”. The “Plan” focuses on promoting intelligent connected vehicle access and road traffic pilot projects, conditionally approving production access for L3 class models, and promoting the improvement of laws and regulations on road traffic safety and insurance.

In addition, major cities are actively promoting L3 autonomous driving. Shanghai's Pudong New Area has designated the third batch of 583 open test ground roads for autonomous driving with a total of 583 and 758.62 kilometers. Beijing, Shenzhen, Wuhan and other places have already delineated some high-speed and urban expressway test roads.

At the same time, the automobile industry chain, represented by OEMs, began to “rub hands.” OEMs that have announced L3 scale launches and internal testing progress include Guangzhou Automobile, Huawei, Changan Automobile, Zhiji, Rantu, Xiaopeng Motors, and FAW-Volkswagen.

According to the relevant R&D director of Changan Automobile, in 2025, as a key point for the inclusion of smart driving, users' demand for intelligent travel will fully explode. “Driven by the deepening implementation of policies, shortening the technological breakthrough cycle, and a sharp increase in market demand, it is expected that urban L3 and L4 will be implemented next year and 2030, respectively.”

Guohai Securities said that as the combined assisted driving function enters a new stage of standardized development, the relevant policy standards are steadily advancing the implementation process. 2025-2027 will form a clear three-stage path of “standard setting - transition implementation - full entry into force”. This process will lay the institutional foundation for L3 autonomous driving admission. The agency determined that the official L3 entry node is expected to arrive after 2026 and is currently in a critical window for industrial chain layout. From an investment perspective, we should currently focus on two major directions:

The first is market demand driven by policy compliance, including fields such as driver monitoring systems (DMS), data recording systems, and test and verification platforms. These processes will directly benefit from the incremental demand brought about by the implementation of standards;

Second, there are industrial opportunities led by technological upgrades. Core components such as intelligent driving domain controllers, vehicle-grade chips, and wire control actuators will continue to benefit from industrial technology iteration.

Related concept stocks:

Horizon Robotics (09660 ): The company dominates the market for advanced driver-assistance solutions and is one of the few suppliers that can simultaneously supply chips+algorithms. In terms of hardware, the J6P and HorizonCell have been launched, which can provide 1120 TOPS computing power, and is currently catching up with Nvidia; in terms of solutions, it has launched an urban NOA smart driving solution, which combines software and hardware to further improve solution performance; the company has rich customer resources+mass production experience, and the products are already equipped with models such as Ideal L6Pro, NIO Firefly, and Chery iCarV23, which have already entered customers such as BYD, Chery, and Bosch.

Black Sesame Intelligence (02533): In the field of autonomous driving, the company's Huashan series A1000Pro has 106 TOPS computing power, and has launched the A2000 to further enrich the product matrix. The company has cooperated with Geely and many other major automobile OEMs and Tier1, and has entered models such as Galaxy E8 and Linker 07; in the field of cross-domain computing, the company launched the industry's first cross-domain computing chip, the Wudang C1200. FAW Hongqi is expected to build a single-chip intelligent vehicle control based on the C1200 Platform solutions to help the company grow revenue.

Suteng Juchuang (02498 ): Yole Group, an international market research and strategy consulting agency, released the “2025 Global Automotive LiDAR Market Report”, stating that RoboSense Sagiteng Juchuang won three “world firsts” in the global automotive lidar market: the number one market share in the passenger car lidar market in 2024, the ADAS lidar “top seller” for the year, and the cumulative sales volume of ADAS in 2018-2024 Champion.

Youchao Innovation (02431): Youchao Innovation has won a number of targets this year with its two major businesses: intelligent assisted driving and smart cockpit. Among them, iPilot 4 plus, a mid-level assisted driving domain controller, was launched in mid-level and high-end assisted driving projects; for higher-level autonomous driving, Youchao's innovative L4 autonomous driving solution iRobo has been commercialized in multiple scenarios across the country in the form of a manned minibus. On July 9, Youjiao Innovation issued an announcement stating that it had completed the placement of 6.8 million new H shares on the same day, with a net proceeds of HK$155 million, which will increase investment in middle and advanced assisted driving and L4 autonomous driving.