Changan Group has launched SDA Pilot, an in-house advanced driver assistance system offered in three tiers, as the Chinese automaker advances its smart driving programme. The Ultra tier combines highway and urban navigation on autopilot, 31 active safety features, a 560 TOPS computing chip, and a 256-line LiDAR sensor.

The Changan Nevo Q06, the first production model to feature SDA Pilot Ultra, opened for pre-order at the launch. Development of the underlying technology dates back as far as 2009, with SAE Level 3 conditional autonomous driving approval in China finally being granted on 20 December 2025.

In a statement, Zhao Fei, President of Changan Group, said: “Changan began developing intelligent driving technology in 2009, when it was still a laboratory subject in China. SDA Pilot is the result of everything we have learned since.”

The programme draws on cumulative R&D investment of more than €7.7bn (approximately US$8.3bn) and a team of more than 7,500 engineers. SDA Pilot’s end-to-end model is trained on more than 20 million real-world driving segments, with simulation infrastructure spanning 224 global climate regions.

Zhu Huarong, Chairman of Changan Group, added: “Changan’s intelligent driving team has grown from a handful of engineers to more than 7,500 people, backed by cumulative R&D investment of more than EUR 7.7 billion. We will continue to pursue our strategy for intelligent transformation and to build our core technologies in-house.”

Why this matters:

• In-house development narrows the Western supplier gap.Changan’s claim of building core intelligent-driving technology internally, rather than relying on partnerships with established suppliers, suggests Chinese automakers are increasingly capable of matching the vertical integration long associated with Tesla and premium Western rivals.
• Tiered rollout signals a mass-market strategy first.Launching Pro, Max, and Ultra tiers simultaneously, with the flagship system debuting on a pre-order model rather than a halo vehicle, suggests Changan is prioritising rapid market penetration over a slower premium-down rollout.
• Simulation scale may outpace regulatory scrutiny.The claimed 3.3 million kilometres of daily simulated driving raises questions about how such internally generated safety validation will be assessed by regulators outside China as these systems are considered for export markets.