CX Briefing: Carmakers Ditch ‘Smart Driving’ Term

A rundown of the news making headlines in and around China:

Smart driving rebrand: Chinese automakers are rebranding their “smart driving” features to “assisted driving” following a regulatory change aimed at curbing misleading autonomous driving claims and improving road safety. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology passed down the order in the wake of a fatal crash involving a Xiaomi SU7 that had its smart driving system engaged. Firms including Xiaomi Corp., Li Auto Inc., XPeng Inc., and Nio Inc. have since changed their marketing terms. While Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is continuing to use “advanced intelligent driving system,” but specified its product is only designed for “assisted driving, not autonomous driving.” The terminology used to market autonomous driving tech has been criticized as being too vague, with some companies marketing Level 2 systems as more capable than they really are, leading to over-reliance. Autonomous driving capabilities are broadly ranked from level 0 to 5. The vast majority of assisted driving features currently available in cars belong to the Level 2 category — requiring a human to be in control of the car the whole time.