With the introduction of the new OTA regulations, the intelligent driving industry bids farewell to "wild growth".

Under the heavy fist of national supervision, the era of "wild growth" of intelligent connected vehicles is quietly coming to an end. The OTA strategies and promotion methods of automakers such as XPeng, Li Auto, and Huawei are about to undergo a comprehensive reshaping.

In mid - August 2025, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Recall of Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Products, Supervision of Production Consistency, and Standardizing Promotions (Draft for Comment)", soliciting public opinions from the whole society.

This notice, known as the "strictest supervision in history", directly targets the industry's chaotic phenomena, constructing a comprehensive supervision system from four major dimensions: vehicle recall, production consistency, commercial promotion, and incident and accident reporting. It uses the prohibitive wording "shall not" six times, clearly drawing a red line for the industry.

01 Core of the New Regulations: Strictly Regulate Promotions and OTA Upgrades

The core content of this draft for comment is mainly reflected in two aspects: standardizing promotion behaviors and strictly managing OTA upgrades.

In terms of promotion, the new regulations clearly require enterprises not to use any words in naming and marketing promotions that may mislead consumers into thinking it is autonomous driving, and not to imply to consumers that it can be regarded as an autonomous driving system.

The new regulations strictly prohibit false or exaggerated promotions and require enterprises to provide information on the driving automation level and system capabilities of intelligent connected new energy vehicles truthfully and comprehensively.

In terms of OTA upgrades, the new regulations stipulate that OTA upgrade activities shall not be carried out without filing, software versions that have not been fully tested and verified shall not be pushed to users, and defects shall not be concealed through OTA.

The State Administration for Market Regulation will conduct key spot - checks and special verifications on enterprises that frequently carry out OTA upgrade activities.

02 Industry Chaos: Misleading Promotions and Abuse of OTA

In recent years, the intelligent driving track has been extremely popular. In order to seize the market, automakers' marketing slogans have become more and more radical. Terms such as "automatic piloting", "fully automatic driving assistance", and "driverless experience" have misled consumers into thinking that their cars can really "drive themselves", resulting in frequent accidents and difficult - to - determine responsibilities.

Huang Jinjing, an expert from the Road Traffic Safety Research Center of the Ministry of Public Security, pointed out that the so - called autonomous driving in the current market is actually still assisted driving. Legally, the obligations of drivers of assisted driving are the same as those of ordinary drivers and they still need to comply with all traffic regulations.

There is also a serious abuse of OTA upgrades. Some automakers secretly reduce battery life through OTA, and others push semi - finished functions to users for "public testing" in order to meet the schedule, euphemistically called "iterative optimization".

Xiong Lu, the dean of the School of Automotive Engineering at Tongji University, said that enterprises often cover up functional defects through OTA upgrades instead of deeply exploring the root causes of the defects and reporting them. Newly added functions may also have defects, thus forming a vicious cycle of covering up the defects of the previous upgrade.

03 XPeng Motors: OTA Delay and Compliance Adjustment

The new regulations have had a real impact on enterprises. XPeng Motors recently released the "17th Edition of XPeng MONA's Answers to Users' Questions", which mentioned that the OTA plan originally scheduled for March was postponed due to the new regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

According to the new regulations issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on February 28, all newly added key software changes need to be announced first, and software filing can be carried out after the announcement is issued. This has added considerable challenges to XPeng Motors' OTA plan.

As a volume - selling model, the delay of OTA upgrades for the XPeng MONA M03 may affect its market competitiveness. XPeng Motors is known for its intelligence, and OTA is an important means for it to maintain product competitiveness. Under the new regulations, XPeng needs to readjust its OTA strategy and strengthen testing and filing work.

04 Li Auto: Function Optimization and Safety Upgrade

Li Auto has been continuously optimizing its intelligent driving functions through OTA upgrades. In February 2025, Li Auto launched the OTA 7.1 version, bringing the AD Max V13 model, claiming to be the first and only intelligent driving system in the world with zero take - overs per 100 kilometers.

Recently, Li Auto launched the OTA 7.5 version upgrade, introducing the concept of "super alignment", aiming to ensure that the assisted driving behavior is consistent with human values and long - term interests.

This upgrade ensures that the AD Max advanced assisted driving is continuously aligned with human values during the process of capacity improvement through four key dimensions: behavior alignment, legal and regular alignment, technical safety alignment, and alignment supervision.

Li Auto's OTA strategy focuses on function optimization and safety improvement, which meets the requirements of the new regulations. This shows that Li Auto is relatively standardized in terms of OTA and may be more likely to adapt to the new regulatory environment.

05 Huawei Intelligent Driving: Invisible Upgrade with Remarkable Results

Huawei is also active in the field of intelligent driving. On August 22, 2025, Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solution Business Unit announced that the first - version OTA of the Kunpeng Intelligent Driving HUAWEI ADS 4 and the HarmonySpace 5 cockpit was officially pushed.

This OTA uses the invisible upgrade method and can be automatically completed in the background. At the same time, Huawei also announced four important achievements of the Kunpeng Intelligent Driving: the number of vehicles equipped has exceeded 1 million, the cumulative shipment of lidars has exceeded 1 million units, the number of uses of the parking - to - parking pilot assistance function has reached 10 million times, and the cumulative mileage of assisted driving has reached 4 billion kilometers.

Jin Yuzhi, the CEO of Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solution Business Unit, pointed out when talking about the charging model for assisted driving in the ADS 4 version that there is no truly free service in the world. Many seemingly free products or functions on the Internet are essentially manifestations of another business model, that is, "the wool comes from the sheep".

06 Industry Impact: Short - term Pain and Long - term Benefits

The new regulations will have a profound impact on the intelligent driving industry. In the short term, some automakers that rely on "tech marketing" may feel uncomfortable. Companies that have inflated their valuations with the concept of "autonomous driving" need to readjust their slogans; those enterprises that are used to using OTA to "patch" also need to adapt to more stringent processes.

Zhang Hong, a member of the Expert Committee of the China Automobile Dealers Association, believes that by standardizing enterprises' promotion and business behaviors, the competent authorities can help eliminate the chaotic phenomenon of false promotions in the industry, enhance consumers' trust in intelligent connected vehicle technology, and create a healthy and sustainable industry development environment.

Cui Dongshu, the secretary - general of the Passenger Car Association, analyzed that although the draft for comment puts forward strict requirements for enterprises, including strengthening safety responsibilities, standardizing technical verification and promotion, etc., it will bring compliance pressure to enterprises in the short term, but in the long run, it will promote the upgrade of algorithms and computing power, and promote the maturity of technology and high - quality development of the industry.

07 Future Outlook: Industry Maturity and Differentiation

With the improvement of regulatory policies, the intelligent driving industry will gradually move towards maturity and differentiation. Li Fanni, the chief analyst of S&P Global's automotive supply chain and technology, said that in recent years, automakers' OTA upgrade strategies have shifted from rapid iteration to a more stable rhythm.

In the second half of 2024, some automakers could still maintain a software version upgrade frequency of once every two weeks, but in the first half of 2025, the overall upgrade frequency of the industry slowed down significantly. This change reflects the trend of standardization in software management among automakers.

In the future, the industry will shift from "competing for gimmicks" to "competing for real technology". Truly powerful enterprises will stand out, while those who only play with concepts and have weak technology may be eliminated.

For consumers, this is also a good thing. In the future, when buying a car, they will not be deceived by exaggerated promotions, but can more clearly know what the car can and cannot do.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Competition and Cooperation in Artificial Intelligence", author: Competition and Cooperation, published by 36Kr with authorization.