China has issued its first mandatory national standard for automatic emergency braking (AEB), making the system compulsory for all new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles from 2028 onwards.

The move introduces a formal nationwide safety baseline in the world’s largest car market, but comes several years after comparable requirements were already enforced in Europe.

Already in 2024

The new Chinese standard will take effect on 1 January 2028. By contrast, the European Union embedded automatic emergency braking into its legal minimum for new cars in July 2024 under the General Safety Regulation.

The announcement, therefore, highlights a clear timing gap between the two regions: Europe has already moved from adoption to enforcement, while China is only now setting a mandatory baseline.

Published at the end of 2025 as GB 39901—2025, the Chinese regulation applies to passenger cars and light commercial vehicles and replaces an earlier recommended version of the same framework.

It effectively shifts AEB from a best-practice feature to a compliance requirement, defining not only the system’s presence but also its technical performance and test methods.

Real-world scenarios

What distinguishes China’s approach is its focus on specific real-world scenarios. Reporting and draft materials indicate explicit testing involving vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists, as well as two-wheelers like scooters and mopeds, which are ubiquitous in Chinese traffic.

While the standard draws on existing UN emergency braking regulations, it adapts them to China-specific conditions, including dense mixed traffic and night-time operation, reflecting local road-use patterns in which interactions between cars and two-wheeled vehicles are frequent and complex.

The main contrast with Europe, however, lies in timing rather than intent. Under EU rules, emergency braking systems have already become unavoidable for new vehicles, years ahead of China’s 2028 deadline. The Chinese mandate does not leapfrog Europe, but closes an existing gap by ensuring universal AEB fitment across the domestic market.

Chinese cars for EU fully comply

The comparison also clarifies an often-misunderstood point: vehicles built in China and sold in Europe must already comply fully with EU type-approval rules, including mandatory emergency braking.

There is no separate standard for imported cars. The significance of the new Chinese regulation, therefore, lies not in exports to Europe but in its impact on China’s vast domestic market, particularly in lower-cost segments.

From a safety perspective, AEB is no longer an experimental technology. Large-scale studies have shown that it can significantly reduce rear-end crashes and mitigate injury severity.

No substitute for human driver

At the same time, regulators stress that AEB remains an assistive function rather than a substitute for the driver. Performance can still be affected by weather, visibility, sensor limitations, and complex traffic situations.

Modern AEB systems continuously monitor sensor and camera performance and must inform the driver when functionality is degraded or unavailable, for example, due to adverse weather, glare, or sensor obstruction. In such cases, the system may be temporarily limited or deactivated to avoid unreliable interventions.

Taken together, the two timelines reflect different regulatory philosophies. Europe opted for early mandatory adoption and relies heavily on independent safety ratings to drive further improvement, while China is now locking in a mandatory baseline with a strong focus on local traffic realities.

As both regions refine their requirements, the focus is shifting from whether cars can brake automatically to how reliably they do so in the most challenging real-world scenarios.