- 4% of China’s domestic NEV passenger cars had L2+ ADAS from January to April 2026.
- AEB installation hit 82.5% and full-speed ACC reached 78.9%, signaling standardization of active safety.
- China’s automotive chip market will exceed RMB 85B in 2026 and is set to top RMB 300B by 2030.
Data released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) on June 23 showed that the installation rate of Level 2-plus (L2+) ADAS functions in domestic NEV passenger cars reached 87.4% during January-April 2026.
Penetration continued to rise even in vehicles priced below RMB 160K ($23.6K), underscoring how intelligent driving features are shifting from optional extras to mainstream purchase requirements.
China sold 1.496M NEVs in May, up 11.3% from April, up 14.4% year-on-year. Market penetration held at a high 56.9%. NEV passenger-car sales reached 1.381M units, rising 11.9% from a year earlier.
The market mix also continued to shift toward SUVs. NEV sedans accounted for 33.0% of total NEV sales in May, down 9.5 percentage points from a year earlier. NEV SUVs expanded their share to 54.4%, up 7.2 percentage points, reinforcing their position as the dominant segment.
The report also outlined adoption rates for key ADAS functions.
Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) reached an installation rate of 82.5% in January-April 2026. As sensor performance improves, AEB has become one of the most widely adopted active-safety features in the market.
Full-speed Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) posted a 78.9% fitment rate, up 10.5 percentage points year-on-year. Lower hardware costs, stronger software capabilities continue to push ACC toward standard-equipment status.
Automatic Lane Change (ALC) reached 37.8%, up 10.4 percentage points from a year earlier. Once reserved for premium vehicles, the feature is increasingly moving into mass-market models as software integration deepens.
Automatic Parking Assist (APA) recorded one of the fastest growth rates. Installation reached 56.1%, up 15.9 percentage points year-on-year. Wider functionality, improved user experience continue to accelerate adoption.
Behind the rapid rise in intelligent-driving features lies a fast-expanding automotive semiconductor market. China’s high-computing-power intelligent-driving chip market is projected to reach RMB 85B ($12.5B) in 2026. Industry forecasts suggest continued expansion over the next several years.
Between 2025 and 2030, China’s automotive chip market is expected to post a compound annual growth rate of 17.3%. Total market size is forecast to exceed RMB 300B ($44.3B) by 2030.
At the same time, chip architecture competition is entering a new phase. RISC-V-based automotive chips are expected to secure more than 30% market share by the end of the decade, reflecting accelerating domestic substitution efforts across China’s automotive semiconductor supply chain.
The latest data suggest China’s smart-driving market is moving beyond early adoption. As ADAS penetration approaches saturation in the NEV segment, competition is increasingly shifting from hardware availability to software capability, computing efficiency, user experience, system integration.
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