Four Chinese ministries barred innovation that skips scenario validation

Four Chinese government departments convened more than thirty truck, bus, special-vehicle, trailer and motorcycle manufacturers, the industry ministry said in a notice published on September 24. The departments were MIIT’s first equipment industry department, the traffic management bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, the atmospheric environment department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the quality development department of the market regulator, joined by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and the China Motorcycle Chamber of Commerce.

The meeting sat under the production-conformity and quality-improvement campaign the same four ministries launched by joint notice in late August. Most of its content addressed illegal modification and the practice of under-rating vehicle load capacity. One of its four instructions reached software.

Manufacturers were told to strengthen vehicle functional testing, validation and safety assessment, to build up their own research and testing capability, and to prohibit what the notice called “aggressive innovation” that chases hot topics while lacking scenario validation, along with non-compliant structures fitted to vehicles.

A second instruction extended the audit past the manufacturer. Companies were told to look for problems in production consistency, reliability, durability and test validation at their key component suppliers as well as in their own operations. A third asked for traceability across key stages, with incoming inspection of key components and end-of-line inspection of finished vehicles.

The departments said they would carry out supervisory inspections at these manufacturers, tighten their management of vehicle inspection and testing bodies, deal with offending manufacturers and testing bodies under the law, and expose them publicly. The notice also disclosed that a comparable meeting with passenger-car makers had already been held.