Introduction

In September 2026, five departments in Guangdong Province—the Department of Industry and Information Technology, the Department of Public Security, the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Department of Transport, and the Postal Administration—jointly released the 'Reference Guidelines for Road Testing and Commercial Demonstration Applications of Functional Autonomous Vehicles in Guangdong Province'.

At the provincial level, the document incorporated 'mutual recognition of testing results' for the first time.

This news brought relief to many in the industry: finally, they wouldn't have to start from scratch in every city.

However, upon closer inspection of the detailed regulations already in place across different regions, it becomes evident that while this 'pass' grants entry to the station, each city still necessitates a separate 'permit' once inside.

The province mandates a minimum insurance requirement of 1.5 million yuan, but Huizhou demands 5 million yuan, and Foshan requires 3 million yuan.

Mutual recognition applies solely to the testing phase; commercial demonstration qualifications remain under the purview of local governments.

The authority to approve road rights has consistently remained with local authorities.

Guangdong has made an initial breakthrough, but behind it lies not a direct route but a complex web of regulations that must be navigated city by city. Nevertheless, this marks a significant step forward for autonomous vehicles striving towards a unified market.

Autonomous Vehicles Are Coming (WeChat Official Account: Autonomous Vehicles Are Coming) explores this topic with everyone!

(For further reading, please click: '17 Measures, 1.8 Billion Packages, 12.5 Billion Yuan: Huizhou, Guangdong, Opens the Door for Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Delivery')

I. Insurance: From 1.5 Million to 5 Million Yuan—Cross-City Operations Aren't 'Move-In Ready' but Require Funding at the Highest Standard

The most underestimated cost of cross-city deployment lies not in the vehicles themselves but in the insurance policies.

According to industry organizations' analysis of the 'Guidelines' and comparisons with existing local regulations, the provincial 'Guidelines' stipulate a minimum insurance requirement of 1.5 million yuan per vehicle, a standard adhered to by Meizhou.

However, a survey around the Pearl River Delta reveals a different scenario:

Foshan, Shaoguan, Qingyuan, Dongguan, and Pingshan District in Shenzhen all mandate 3 million yuan;

Longgang and Nanshan Districts in Shenzhen set the requirement at 2 million yuan;

Huizhou directly escalates the bar to 5 million yuan, the highest among the listed regions.

Foshan's own detailed regulations initially proposed a 5 million yuan insurance requirement during the consultation phase but later adjusted it to 3 million yuan based on feedback from enterprises and the industry. This back-and-forth underscores that insurance amounts are not arbitrary but are determined by balancing risk, cost, and industrial attractiveness.

For operators, this translates to a specific financial strategy: cross-regional deployments cannot rely on the 1.5 million yuan minimum but must configure insurance structures according to the highest applicable standards in the regions they traverse.

When a fleet moves from Meizhou to Huizhou, insurance costs do not increase linearly but surge significantly.

For true provincial mutual recognition to be effective, mechanisms for 'equivalent recognition' or 'deficiency makeup' in insurance requirements must be addressed in subsequent support measures.

Currently, testing records can be mutually recognized, but hard-earned insurance policies cannot.

II. Road Rights: Still 'One City, One Policy,' but Nanhai Pushes the Boundaries the Farthest

The provincial 'Guidelines' provide a framework, but the authority to approve road rights remains with local governments. Prohibitions on highways and urban expressways are already firm red lines in local regulations, but beyond these red lines, the degree of openness varies greatly across regions.

Foshan's Nanhai District adopts the most progressive approach: except for a few unsuitable roads, all districts are open to autonomous logistics vehicles.

The significance of this statement lies in transforming road rights from a scarce resource requiring line-by-line approval into a publicly accessible space by default.

Neolix deployed its first 100 X6T vehicles in Nanhai in September, attracted by the combination of 'early road rights opening, rapid government response, high scenario density, and close industrial support'.

Nanhai's strategy is not about 'lax regulation' but leveraging the certainty of road rights to accelerate industrial clustering. To date, regional companies of leading enterprises such as Neolix, Jiushi, Huolala, Didi, and Meituan have established operations, with nearly 200 approved testing routes, beginning to show scale effects.

(For further reading, please click: 'Nanhai District, Foshan: Autonomous Logistics Vehicles and Municipal Vehicles Achieve Multi-Scenario, Large-Scale Operations, Attracting Leading Enterprises Such as Neolix, Jiushi Intelligence, Desay SV, and PIX Moving')

Shenzhen takes a different path.

In March 2026, Shenzhen became the first city nationwide to systematically open nighttime road rights, allowing autonomous vehicles to operate legally from 10 PM to 6 AM daily;

In July, Longgang District launched the nation's first 'five-party co-management' model: Neolix provides vehicles and technology, DTD holds assets, Huolala supplies order flow, Eastern Bus handles operations and maintenance, and the transport department oversees regulation.

The ingenuity of this structure lies in transforming autonomous vehicles from 'company assets' into 'socialized transport capacity,' enabling small and medium-sized merchants to access them on demand without the need to purchase or maintain vehicles.

When road rights, assets, orders, and operations are decoupled and recombined, the barrier to autonomous vehicle deployment shifts from 'who can afford to buy vehicles' to 'who has scenarios to feed them'.

III. The 'Half-Open Door' of Mutual Recognition: Testing Records Can Pass, but Commercial Demonstrations Require Localization

The most easily misunderstood phrase in the 'Guidelines' is 'mutual recognition of testing results'.

What is mutually recognized is the testing phase; whether commercial demonstration qualifications are transferable across cities varies in local regulations.

Moreover, mutual recognition is not as simple as 'exchanging records for licenses'.

Longgang District in Shenzhen sets a relatively advanced standard: long-distance testing vehicles with the same architecture are exempt from repeating autonomous driving function tests, with only a 5% sampling rate for testing.

However, not every city follows Longgang's approach.

(For further reading, please click: 'With 'One Pass,' Autonomous Vehicles Can Now Travel Across Six Cities—Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, and Zhongshan Achieve Mutual Recognition for Intelligent Connected Vehicles')

Some regions still require a certain amount of local road testing after cross-city mutual recognition before commercial demonstration applications can proceed.

Figures like 120 hours or 500 kilometers appear in different cities' regulations with varying positions and intensities and should not be treated as a province-wide 'makeup ticket price list'.

The truly unified judgment is that testing records can streamline preliminary processes, but local adaptation for commercial demonstrations is never automatic.

The real pace of cross-city deployment is not about 'driving straight over with provincial documents' but 'making initial eligibility judgments based on provincial benchmarks and then verifying local requirements city by city'.

IV. Regulations Are Just the Entry Ticket; Scenarios Are the True Testing Ground

As New Strategy Robotics Media points out:

A horizontal analysis of insurance, vehicle specifications, trafficability, speed, and testing mileage reveals that:

Local regulations for functional autonomous vehicles in Guangdong are not 'operating independently' but are based on practical samples already established at the municipal and district levels before the provincial 'Guidelines' were compiled.

Viewing insurance, road rights, and mutual recognition together clarifies the nature of Guangdong's policy relaxation: it addresses whether 'cross-city operations are institutionally possible' but leaves the question of 'whether cross-city operations are commercially viable' for later.

The latter is the true variable determining whether autonomous vehicles can 'run everywhere'.

The first agricultural autonomous delivery vehicle in Guangzhou's Baiyun District, jointly launched by the district's supply and marketing cooperative and Jiushi Intelligence, operates an 80-kilometer route between Zhongluotan Town and Renhe Town, covering eight administrative villages. It reduces comprehensive delivery costs by about 35% and lowers fresh produce damage rates from 20% to below 5%.

It does not focus on 'how cool autonomous driving is' but addresses the real pain points of excessive intermediaries and high fruit damage rates in rural fresh produce logistics.

After Nanhai District opened up road rights across the region, leading autonomous vehicle companies are not 'waiting for policies' but 'scheduling routes'.

The commonality of these cases is not the number of mutual recognition clauses in documents but that local authorities treat autonomous vehicles as industrial infrastructure rather than strictly regulated test subjects.

Nanhai shifted from 'waiting for enterprises to come' to 'following enterprise schedules,' providing guidance before route approvals and reasonably assessing safety and traffic impacts.

This difference in execution posture determines a city's deployment speed more than any mutual recognition clause.

Conclusion

Autonomous Vehicles Are Coming (WeChat Official Account: Autonomous Vehicles Are Coming) believes that:

Guangdong's provincial 'Guidelines' represent a pioneering attempt to shift domestic functional autonomous vehicle policies from 'one city, one policy' to 'regional coordination'.

They offer new hope for cross-city enterprise deployments while clearly defining safety and regulatory boundaries.

Guangdong has opened the door, but the road ahead must still be paved vehicle by vehicle and city by city.

What do you think, dear readers?

References: Media reports from New Strategy Robotics Media, Nanfang Plus, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, Dongjian Wanxiang, Yangcheng, and others.

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