On December 2nd, we learned from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) that the national certification standard GB17675-2025 Basic Requirements for Automotive Steering Systems has been officially released. This new standard will fully replace the previous "GB17675-2021" standard starting from July 1st, 2026. One of the most important revised contents of the new standard is to address new steering technologies such as Steer-by-Wire (SBW) and Electric Power Steering (EPS) by removing the mandatory requirements for relevant mechanical connections.

The standard was led and drafted by a number of relevant automaker entities, including NIO Auto Technology (Anhui) Co., Ltd., Beijing CHJ Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., Guangzhou XPeng Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., BYD Auto Industry Co., Ltd., Geely Automobile Research Institute (Ningbo) Co., Ltd., Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd., Huawei Digital Energy Technologies Co., Ltd., as well as joint venture enterprises such as Toyota Intelligent Electric Vehicle R&D Center (China) Co., Ltd. and Mercedes-Benz (China) Investments Ltd.

This revision draft paves the way for the large-scale application of autonomous driving technology. The revised draft focuses on strengthening requirements related to safety. For example, referring to the latest amendment to the United Nations Regulation No. 79 (UN R79), it enhances the redundancy capability of steering systems after failure. At the same time, it introduces functional safety terminology and verification methods, requiring steering electronic control systems to meet the functional safety levels corresponding to international standards such as ISO 26262.

Among the well-known automotive brands currently, models that have adopted steer-by-wire technology include the Infiniti Q50, IM L6, NIO ET9, and Tesla Cybertruck. Among them, the Infiniti Q50 was the first model in China equipped with steer-by-wire technology but featured a redundant design with mechanical connections; while the NIO ET9 is the first mass-produced and delivered fully steer-by-wire model in China. In the future, sports cars under the Denza brand owned by BYD Group will also adopt this technology, and more automakers will follow suit.

In other aspects, the new regulation also revises provisions on the failure of full-power steering systems, alarm requirements for full-power steering systems, functional safety requirements for steering electronic control systems, and supporting test methods, as detailed below:

The current standard has deficiencies in requirements for full-power steering systems, which makes it difficult to meet the current development needs of steering systems in terms of safety and functionality. In this revision of the GB 17675 standard, requirements for full-power steering systems are put forward in terms of vehicle safety status, degradation requirements, deceleration time at the start of degradation, deceleration requirements for degradation, degradation alarm signals, energy storage level requirements for energy storage devices, energy management systems for energy storage devices, and parking after degradation. It focuses on improving the failure provisions for full-power steering systems and clarifying the safety response strategies of the system under different failure scenarios such as power source or power supply device failure, control transmission failure, and energy transmission failure, so as to ensure driving safety.

Full-power steering systems eliminate mechanical connections and rely on energy for steering operations. Therefore, a new alarm method for the aging state and insufficient performance of energy storage devices has been added. At the same time, it clearly requires that energy storage devices must be equipped with an energy management system, which should be able to realize real-time monitoring and performance evaluation of energy storage devices, and trigger corresponding alarms when problems such as aging or insufficient performance occur, so as to ensure the safe operation of the full-power steering system.

To further enhance the enforceability of the standard, this revision modifies the requirements related to functional safety verification tests and clarifies typical test cases. Testing institutions shall, in accordance with the requirements of the standard, conduct document review and evaluation as well as random inspection tests on the documents related to the functional safety of the steering electronic control system submitted by manufacturers for record, so as to prove that the system has realized the functional concept and functional safety concept under non-fault and fault states, and meets all applicable performance requirements specified in this document.

This revision further clarifies the inspection methods for full-power steering. It modifies the test requirements for measuring the steering operation force when the automotive steering system fails. In addition, to correspond to the revised and newly added requirements for full-power steering, additional tests for full-power steering systems have been added.

On the basis of the above main revision points, this revision also improves the definition of relevant terms for full-power steering systems, adds requirements for functional safety test reports of steering electronic control systems and requirements for functional safety descriptions of steering electronic control systems, further enhancing the implementability of the standard.

Major drafting units of the standard GB17675-2025 Basic Requirements for Automotive Steering Systems:
SAIC Motor Corporation Limited, NIO Auto Technology (Anhui) Co., Ltd., China Automotive Technology & Research Center Co., Ltd., Beijing CHJ Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., FAW Group Corporation, Nanjing Donghua Intelligent Steering System Co., Ltd., CATARC Automotive Test Center (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., Guangzhou XPeng Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., BYD Auto Industry Co., Ltd., Geely Automobile Research Institute (Ningbo) Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Jikrypton Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd., Chenzhi Automotive Technology Group Co., Ltd., Changan Automobile Co., Ltd., Great Wall Motor Company Limited, Shenzhen Yinwang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd., Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center Co., Ltd., BAIC Research Institute Co., Ltd., Nexteer Automotive Systems (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., ZF Automotive Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Bosch Huayu Steering Systems Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Zhiyu Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., Huawei Digital Energy Technologies Co., Ltd., Toyota Intelligent Electric Vehicle R&D Center (China) Co., Ltd., Mercedes-Benz (China) Investments Ltd., Xiangyang Daan Automobile Test Center Co., Ltd., China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd., and CATARC Automotive Test Center (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd.