The blue lamp Chinese carmakers have used to signal active driver assistance traces back, per this D1EV commentary, to the Li Auto L9 in August 2022 — the first production vehicle anywhere to externalize L2 assist status with light. The idea had precursors that never reached showrooms: Huawei engineers wired test cars in 2021, and Daimler demonstrated it on its F015 concept at CES 2015. After two years as a Li Auto exclusive, the cue spread fast — AITO M9 owners could buy a retrofit light kit, Zhiji pre-wired the LS6, Zeekr made it standard on new performance models — until scarcely a 2025 launch dared omit it, with Xiaomi's SU7 and YU7 the conspicuous holdouts.
That run ended on July 27, 2026, when MIIT's 410th vehicle-approval batch began rejecting new passenger cars fitted with factory blue assist lamps. The standardization institute's rationale: the mandatory lighting regulation GB 4785 permits only white, yellow, amber and red for civilian vehicles, reserving blue for emergency services, and it flagged glare plus risky behavior — cutting in and tailgating — around lamp-equipped cars. Because approvals are not retroactive, the roughly one million lamp-fitted cars already sold, led by Li Auto (up to 360,000) and Huawei-linked brands (about 300,000), plus XPeng, Nio and others, may legally keep glowing.
The author reads the timing as preparation for L3: Deepal's SL03 and Arcfox's Alpha S won conditional L3 approval in December 2025, pilot cities keep multiplying, and the first mandatory L3/L4 safety standard, GB 44721, landed three days after the ban. His conclusion: regulators want L2 cars to stop occupying the signal so a sanctioned L3 marker lamp — SAE recommended a turquoise one back in 2019 — can return when GB 4785 is revised around 2028-2029. Until then, the existing million owners enjoy a brief spell as the only cars on the road still lit blue.