On August 25, 2026, the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPCSC) began first review of a draft revision to the Road Traffic Safety Law that, for the first time, elevates autonomous-vehicle road rules, liability, insurance and data duties to apex-statute level. The draft adds a dedicated chapter, "Special Provisions for Autonomous Vehicles," to a law that has governed Chinese roads since 2004, and it shifts the burden of traffic-violation liability onto manufacturers and importers whenever their systems are driving.
The revision draft (9 chapters, 170 articles) was tabled at the NPCSC's 24th session of the 14th Congress. It is a first-reading text, so provisions can still move before a second reading and adoption, but the liability architecture it sets out is the clearest statutory signal yet for every OEM and insurer operating in China.
Who bears liability when an autonomous vehicle commits a traffic violation?
The manufacturer or importer does. Under the draft, when a traffic violation occurs while the autonomous-driving function is activated, the AV manufacturer or import enterprise must accept handling of the violation. If the enterprise believes the violation is unrelated to the autonomous function, it bears the burden of proof to show so. This inverts the default that attaches liability to the human driver, and it reaches foreign makers selling into China through the import-enterprise anchor.
What must manufacturers and importers do before a vehicle activates its system?
Three gating duties now sit on the maker. First, an AV may activate its autonomous function only within its design operating conditions, and the manufacturer or importer must ensure the vehicle cannot activate the function outside those conditions. Second, no unit or individual may alter the autonomous-driving function without authorization. Third, AVs are subject to compulsory motor-vehicle road-traffic-accident liability insurance, with the specific measures to be formulated by the State Council. A vehicle whose autonomous function is not activated, and cars with only assisted-driving features, are managed under the ordinary non-autonomous regime.
How will investigators access autonomous-vehicle data after a crash?
When a road-traffic accident occurs with the autonomous function active, public-security traffic management may retrieve relevant AV data and collect evidence as needed for the investigation. Where technical inspection or appraisal is required, it must be commissioned to a qualified institution. For makers, this means retrievable, forensically usable data logs are now part of the compliance surface, sitting alongside existing duties under the Cybersecurity Law, Data Security Law and Personal Information Protection Law.
| Obligation | Before | Under the draft (AV active) |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic-violation liability | Human driver | Manufacturer or importer (burden of proof on the enterprise) |
| Activation gating | No statutory rule | Must prevent activation outside design operating conditions |
| Insurance | Ordinary compulsory traffic insurance | Compulsory AV liability insurance (State Council to set details) |
| Accident data | No specific duty | Public security may retrieve AV data; qualified inspection on commission |
Which companies must act now, and what is the timeline?
The exposed audience is concrete. Chinese AV OEMs (BYD, NIO, XPeng, Li Auto, Geely, Changan), foreign makers selling into China (Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota) and the large motor insurers (PICC, Ping An, CPIC) all face product, insurance and litigation-design work. Because the text is at first reading, there is a window to shape the State Council's implementing measures on compulsory insurance and the design-condition standard before they harden. No effective date is set; adoption typically follows a second reading and a Presidential Order.
Continuous, per-jurisdiction monitoring surfaces a change like this the moment it publishes on the legislator's portal, before the trade press catches up.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
What to do next: confirm whether your AV or assisted-driving products fall within the draft's "design operating conditions" definition, brief product, legal and insurance teams on the liability and data-retrieval shift, and track the NPCSC session calendar for a second-reading date. Obsidian tracks this file as it moves from draft to effective law.
