Industry News

Wu Bofeng

 

Recently, the news of "the installation of autonomous driving 'small blue lights' on civilian passenger cars has been completely suspended due to non-compliance" has flooded the automotive consumer market, attracting widespread attention. Industry insiders have stated that as intelligent assisted driving becomes the core feature of new energy vehicles and new fuel vehicles, various personalized vehicle lighting designs have become important selling points for differentiated competition among car companies. The implementation of the "small blue light" compliance rectification is expected to affect the current purchasing trend in the automotive consumer market, forcing intelligent car design to accelerate towards safety and compliance.

 

In the past two years, L2 level and above intelligent driving assistance systems are no longer exclusive to high-end car models, but have gradually sunk to 100000 yuan level household passenger cars, becoming an important reference for consumers to choose vehicles. To visually display the activation status of assisted driving and enhance the technological perception of vehicles, many car companies have added blue status indicator lights in the rearview mirror and taillight areas, commonly known as "small blue lights" in the market. Compared to traditional car lights, cool blue light has high recognition and outstanding visual technology, which can clearly distinguish between manual driving and assisted driving modes. It has become a marketing highlight for car companies to promote intelligent configurations and attract young consumers.

 

The reporter learned that in order to control production costs and shorten the research and development cycle of vehicle models, most car companies have not designed independent lighting structures for the "small blue light", but instead choose to reuse the installation position of the original car turn signal for installation. This borrowed installation method does not require new molds or changes to the body structure, which can reduce research and production investment and quickly become a common practice in the industry. However, it also lays compliance loopholes and road safety hazards.

 

According to the mandatory national standard "Installation Regulations for External Lighting and Light Signal Devices of Vehicles and Trailers" (GB4785-2019), the signal lights allowed for external use of civilian vehicles are limited to white, red, yellow, and amber colors only; The blue light source is exclusive to special vehicles and can only be used by police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and other special vehicles. Ordinary civilian passenger vehicles are prohibited from carrying external lighting fixtures with constant blue light. In other words, car companies changing the legal amber yellow position of turn signals to blue light display is essentially installing non-standard light sources at compliant lighting stations, which is a form of light abuse without regulatory support and violates the safety original intention of vehicle lighting design.

 

The China Automotive Standardization Institute stated that some vehicle products are equipped with "small blue lights" to display to other road participants that the vehicle's driving assistance system is in working condition. However, there is currently a situation of excessive use of light in the "Little Blue Lamp", which can easily lead to safety risks. The "small blue lights" that are turned on at night can easily cause glare and glare to other road participants, especially interfering with the judgment of surrounding drivers on road conditions; Vehicles with this indicator light are more likely to be blocked and followed closely by other car owners, increasing the risk of road traffic.

 

The reporter learned from the China Automotive Standardization Research Institute that although the current standards do not make special provisions for intelligent driving status indicator lights, they explicitly prohibit vehicles from being equipped with external lighting and light signal devices that are not defined by the standards. The "small blue light" design of car companies itself is in a gray area of regulations.

 

On July 27th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched the 410th batch of motor vehicle product announcement and application work. If the new vehicle models submitted for inspection are equipped with external blue intelligent driving status lights arranged on the roof, rearview mirrors, rear of the vehicle, etc., they will not be able to pass the announcement review. This means that the original plan of pre installing external small blue lights on new mass-produced models that have not yet been launched has been halted.

 

On July 29th, the China Automotive Standardization Research Institute responded to the chaos by clearly stating that the installation of driving assistance "small blue lights" on civilian passenger cars poses significant safety risks and urgently needs to be regulated and rectified.

 

At present, under the guidance of the national regulatory authorities, the National Automotive Standardization Technical Committee has initiated the revision of the "Installation Requirements for External Lighting and Light Signal Devices of Vehicles and Trailers" (GB4785) (Plan No. 20262535-Q-339) standard. At the same time, it will strengthen the access review and testing verification management of "radical" product innovation designs by car companies, and eliminate non compliant lighting configurations and gimmicky intelligent designs from the source.

 

Industry insiders say that this rectification is not just a standardized reform of a single lighting fixture, but an important signal for innovative design of intelligent vehicles in China to remove gimmicks and emphasize safety. It will help the automotive consumer market further return to rationality, and product innovation of car companies will strictly focus on safety, practicality, and compliance, no longer relying on fancy appearance configurations to harvest traffic. For ordinary consumers, upgrading industry standards will remove some of the "technological filters" of new cars, fundamentally improve road safety, avoid the risk of car buying pitfalls, and truly return car consumption to the essence of the product.

 

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