China — the infrastructure was built, and the vehicles did not follow.
China allocated spectrum in 2018, built more than eleven thousand roadside units, ran twenty pilot cities and issued a full national standards stack. As of 2025, C-V2X penetration in Chinese vehicles was around four percent, across fewer than thirty mass-production models. This is the most important natural experiment in the field, and its lesson is uncomfortable for infrastructure-first strategies.
Spectrum in 2018, pilots from 2024, and a full national standards stack.
Spectrum. MIIT released direct-communication regulations for 5905–5925 MHz — 20 MHz — for intelligent connected vehicles on 21 October 2018. LTE-V2X (PC5) only; no DSRC path. This is the narrowest major allocation in the world, which constrains the LTE-to-NR migration. The announcement number, commonly cited as No. 46 of 2018, could not be confirmed and is not stated here; the date and band are confirmed. The allocation in context →
Pilots. Seven national connected-vehicle pilot areas and sixteen smart-city / ICV pilot cities in earlier waves. In November 2023 MIIT launched L3/L4 access and road-use pilots; in January 2024 it launched the “vehicle-road-cloud integration” pilot, running 2024–2026. In July 2024 twenty pilot cities were approved: Beijing, Ordos, Shenyang, Changchun, Jinan, Wuhan, Shiyan, Hefei, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou–Tongxiang–Deqing, Fuzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Changsha, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Haikou–Sanya–Qionghai.
Scale. More than 5,000 km of roads opened for C-V2X pilot demonstration; perception facilities at more than 2,000 key intersections across the pilot cities. City examples: Wuxi around 5,000 km of connected roads; Beijing around 600 km²; Tianjin Xiqing with more than 200 roadside installations over 48 km; Shanghai Jiading with more than 800 intelligent vehicles including robotaxis and connected buses.
Standards. National GB/T work under NTCAS SC34, including GB 44495-2024 as a mandatory cybersecurity standard; industry-level V2I, MEC and roadside standards in CCSA TC10 WG5; and the T/CSAE series from China SAE covering application layer (53, 157), V2X warning applications (246-2022), vehicle-road-cloud architecture (295 series) and LTE-V2X RSU requirements (159-2024). MIIT's National V2X Industry Standard System Construction Guide and V2X Industry Development Action Plan are the framing documents.
Credential management. YD/T 3957-2021, developed with CAICT. A Trusted Root Certificate List Authority maintains a Trusted Root Certificate List across multiple authorised root CAs, plus Trusted Domain CA Certificate Lists. Centralised and state-supervised. The four trust models compared →
Around four percent penetration, after six years of continuous policy support.
TechInsights' 2025 analysis found C-V2X penetration of about 4% in Chinese vehicles, with fewer than 30 mass-production models equipped — despite six years of continuous policy support, twenty cities with complete coverage and over eleven thousand roadside units. Their forecast is roughly 25% by 2030, contingent on mandates tightening, particularly V2X fitment requirements for L3-and-above models.
Verified factory-fitted C-V2X models include Hongqi E-HS9, HiPhi X, NIO ET7, Ford Mondeo, Ford EVOS, Mustang Mach-E China, Ford Edge PLUS, Buick GL8 Avenir, Lincoln Aviator, and from January 2025 the BMW 5 Series long-wheelbase. The typical feature set is traffic-light signal push, green-wave speed advisory, green-light start reminder and red-light-running warning — V2I convenience features, not safety-critical V2V. Why that is the pattern everywhere →
No hard national C-V2X fitment mandate has been issued. Policy encourages L2+ vehicles to carry C-V2X terminals within the pilot programme. China's mandatory national standards issued in July and August 2026 for combined driver assistance and autonomous driving safety are ADAS-focused, not V2X mandates.
The strategic read. The government built the infrastructure and the standards; the OEMs largely did not follow, because Chinese manufacturers are competing on onboard ADAS and AI capability, and C-V2X does not differentiate at low penetration. China is the strongest available evidence that infrastructure-first V2X does not automatically pull vehicle fitment — and therefore the strongest available argument for India's vehicle-side mandate approach. India's approach →
Where this fits.
The OEM landscape
The Chinese models with verified factory C-V2X, and the ones without.
India regulation
The mandate-first strategy China's result argues for.
V2V
The penetration mathematics behind the four percent.
Last reviewed: 17 August 2026. The vehicle-road-cloud integration pilot concludes at the end of 2026.