Recent developments in the autonomous driving sector have been overwhelmingly positive. The General Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the High-Quality Construction of a Digital Society in Guangdong Province," which mentions expanding the operational areas for autonomous public transport, broadening the scope of road testing and demonstration applications for intelligent connected vehicles, and encouraging digital transportation service platforms such as navigation, ride-hailing, and smart parking to provide integrated smart transportation services. According to the national recommended standard "Classification of Driving Automation for Vehicles" approved and released by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Standardization Administration of China, vehicle driving automation is categorized into six levels, from L0 to L5. Among these, L3 corresponds to the "conditional automation" stage, representing a significant step over L0-L2 levels by touching the threshold of true autonomous driving. On December 15, 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that two designated vehicle models from Beijing and Chongqing had received official conditional permits to conduct L3 autonomous driving road pilot programs; on December 20, the first dedicated license plate for L3 autonomous driving was issued in Chongqing; and on December 23, Beijing issued its first batch of dedicated license plates for L3 highway autonomous vehicles. Furthermore, media reports indicated that two Tesla Model Y driverless vehicles were spotted operating on public roads in Austin, Texas, USA. Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company is currently testing robotaxis without human safety drivers onboard. Haitong International analysis points out that with the ongoing volume validation of Tesla's Robotaxi and the institutionalized rollout of L3 models in China, the inflection point for high-level autonomous driving is accelerating. From a medium-to-long-term perspective, global regulatory bodies are increasingly easing policy support for the commercialization of smart driving vehicles. Beyond China and the US, in March 2025, the European Commission released its "Action Plan for the Automotive Sector," which seeks to establish a "single market" for autonomous vehicles. In the Middle East, the UAE government has also formulated a series of policies to advance autonomous vehicle development. Additionally, other countries like the UK, Japan, and Singapore have progressively introduced clearer regulatory frameworks. Cinda Securities notes that domestic regulations concerning intelligent connected vehicles are continuously being refined, leading to a progressively standardized industry development environment. Concurrently, domestic brands are accelerating their research and development of intelligent driving technologies, resulting in a steady increase in the penetration rate of smart driving across the industry. For high-level autonomous driving, Robo-X applications continue to be deployed; the market size for Robotaxi is projected to reach 270 billion yuan by 2030, while unmanned logistics vehicles are gradually being implemented, with the incremental output value of China's unmanned logistics vehicle industry expected to rise to 594.8 billion yuan by 2030. Ajian Securities suggests that 2026 is anticipated to be a critical window for breakthroughs in the maturity of high-level automotive intelligent driving technology, supportive policies and regulations, user acceptance, and viable business models. They are optimistic about leading automakers possessing full-stack in-house R&D capabilities, including algorithms and data closed-loops, as these companies are likely to benefit most directly from the appreciation in intelligent driving value. Related concept stocks include JOYSON ELEC (00699): On December 19, 2025, Joyson Electronic's subsidiary Joyson In智行 signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Sinian Zhijia. Leveraging their respective resource strengths, the collaboration will focus deeply on core areas such as limited-scenario L4 intelligent driving solutions, embodied intelligent domain controllers, and their commercial applications. Currently, a jointly developed smart port digital management platform based on "V2X + L4 Intelligent Driving + Intelligent Cloud Dispatch" is already operational and running stably at Ningbo Port. CAOCAO INC (02643): In February 2025, the company officially launched its autonomous driving platform "CaoCao ZhiXing," marking the substantive progression of its Robotaxi business; starting in April, deployment of a new generation of Robotaxi began. This vehicle model utilizes Geely's latest redundant architecture design and deeply integrates CaoCao ZhiXing's capabilities for automated dispatch and remote safety assurance, forming an integrated autonomous driving operation platform. HORIZONROBOT-W (09660): Horizon Robotics recently issued a joint announcement with ZF Group, stating they will co-develop a SAE Level 3 intelligent driving system targeted at the Chinese market. ZF will provide its ProAI platform and system-level architecture design, responsible for the hardware platform, vehicle integration, and safety validation; Horizon will supply its Journey 6P chip (J6P, computing power >1,000 TOPS) and a complete software algorithm stack. This system has already secured designations from a mainstream Chinese automaker and is expected to achieve mass production in 2026. XPENG-W (09868): On January 8, 2026, XPeng systematically elaborated on its "Physical AI" strategy and clear mass production plans during a new product launch. The core elements include utilizing the industry's first second-generation VLA large model capable of initial L4-level functionality, with OTA pushes to multiple new models scheduled for the first quarter; operations for Robotaxi are planned to commence in 2026.
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