China to ban autonomous driving indicators on new cars – report

Turquoise lights used on new cars in China to signify when they are in semi-autonomous driving mode are set to be outlawed, a new report claims.

It is the latest new-car feature subject to a Chinese government crackdown, following rule changes banning or penalising power-retracting door handles, 'yoke' steering controls, and, soon, even the weight of new cars.

Chinese regulators will more strictly enforce existing rules relating to the permitted colours of lights fitted to new vehicles, according to multiple outlets including CNEVPost.

White, red, yellow, and amber are the only colours listed in the rules, which has left the light blue increasingly used by car brands in a grey area.

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Manufacturers have reportedly been advised to stop using blue lights on new vehicles approved from 27 July 2026, with Chinese regulators now discussing how to remove the newly-illegal lights from cars already on the road.

Car News China reports the first vehicle to use turquoise lights was the Li Auto L9, launched in 2022, though Mercedes-Benz has also taken credit for it, despite only showing it a year later on autonomous EQS test cars.

Turquoise lighting has become popular in China – but never seen in Australia – to indicate to other road users when a vehicle’s hands-free semi-autonomous driving mode is active, and the human behind the wheel is supervising, rather than actively controlling the car.

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The latest models, including the updated Li Auto L9, apply turquoise LEDs across a full-width light bar, rather than a few dots in a tail-light cluster.

In recent months, Chinese regulators have begun to crack down on vehicle features and technologies that they perceive to have gone a step too far.

The most notable is a requirement for external door handles to operate mechanically in the event of a crash or power failure, following high-profile crashes where first responders and passers-by have struggled to rescue occupants of vehicles with door handles still tucked into the bodywork.

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It has all but banned power-operated door handles in China – particularly those that pop in and out of the bodywork electrically – and prompted car brands such as BMW to redesign the doors of cars sold in China to remove these technologies.

Other car makers, such as XPeng, are launching new models that skip power-operated handles in all global markets.

The US government has also announce plans to consider similar rule changes, focused on power-operated interior door releases that can fail in a crash.