To continuously drive the technological advancement of China's intelligent connected vehicles and support the industry's progress toward enhanced safety and greater intelligence, the Automotive Test & Assessment Management Center of China Automotive Technology and Research Center Co.,Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "CATC") has officially released China Intelligent-connected Car Assessment Programme (C-ICAP)(2026 Edition).

I. Background and Significance

Since its initial release in 2022, C-ICAP has evaluated over 60 vehicle models, driving significant improvements in the performance of China's intelligent driving systems and establishing a competitive edge in the global market.

This revision is based on in-depth research into China's natural driving scenarios, road traffic accident data, and user behavior surveys. It fully considers the application trends of AI technologies in the automotive industry and incorporates extensive feedback from domestic and international OEMs, industry institutions, and Tier1 suppliers. The aim is to build a more scientific evaluation system that closely aligns with the actual usage habits of Chinese consumers.

II. Main Changes

Based on preliminary research and industry consultations, the key revisions and upgrades are as follows:

1. Revision of management rules

(1) Adjusted the star rating rules.

(2) Added "audit items" for smart cockpit and privacy protection units, requiring manufacturers to provide third-party test reports.

2. Driving assistance

(1) Adjusted the Level-I indicators for driving assistance to high-speed & expressway scenarios, urban scenarios, and human-machine interaction.

(2) Added scenarios such as irregular-shaped targets, multiple targets, complex environments like tunnels and rain/fog, and passage through toll stations and service areas to the high-speed & expressway scenarios.

(3) Optimized scenarios such as crossing path targets and intersection conflicts, and added scenarios like variable lanes and tidal lanes to urban scenarios.

(4) Removed driver status monitoring from human-machine interaction, and added items like physical buttons, system deception, and occupant posture monitoring.

3. Parking assistance

(1) Adjusted the Level-I indicators for parking assistance to parking-in scenarios, parking-out scenarios, human-machine interaction, indoor cruising scenarios, and outdoor cruising scenarios.

(2) Removed parking into parking spots (standard size) and special parking spots from parking-in scenarios, and added scenarios like nighttime and vehicle interference.

(3) Added scenarios such as electric vehicle interference to parking-out scenarios.

(4) Incorporated the remote control function (bonus item) into human-machine interaction, and added scenarios with a squatting child target.

(5) Added targets such as dynamic pedestrians and vehicle interference to indoor cruising scenarios.

(6) Added nighttime scenarios and targets such as cardboard boxes and stone blocks to outdoor cruising scenarios.

4. Smart cockpit

(1) Added AI speech interaction, multi-screen collaboration, and multimodal interaction to intelligent interaction, and enriched the complex noise scenarios for speech interaction.

(2) Added sentry mode to intelligent escort, and enriched the complex lighting scenarios for head-up display and around view.

(3) Added on-board navigation and intelligent sound effects to intelligent services.

5. Privacy protection

(1) For network communication protection, added items such as navigation and positioning spoofing, software update security, combined driver assistance system adversarial attacks, and intelligent speech model adversarial attacks, and updated the known vulnerability detection library and the free combination attack case library for vehicle deep security testing.

(2) For personal information protection, added items such as financial payment records, out-of-vehicle video and image information, and privacy security mechanisms to sensitive personal information on the vehicle.

III. Implementation Date and Protocol Download Address

The C-ICAP(2026 Edition) officially came into effect on July 1, 2026.

China Intelligent-connected Car Assessment Programme(C-ICAP)（2026）