Mandatory battery and vehicle safety standards raise the technological threshold for electric vehicles while reinforcing China’s shift from manufacturing scale to quality leadership in the global lithium-ion industry.
China’s two revised mandatory national standards for EV safety, GB 18384-2025: Electric Vehicles Safety Requirements and GB 38031-2025: Safety Requirements for Power Batteries for Electric Vehicles, came into effect on July 1. Together, they represent the country’s most significant upgrade to EV safety regulations to date, imposing stricter technical requirements on battery systems, vehicle architecture, and emergency response.
The standards substantially raise the safety bar for automakers and battery manufacturers, particularly in battery thermal management, high-voltage protection and crash resilience.
Their implementation comes as China’s EV and battery industries enter a new stage of development. Having established global leadership through manufacturing scale and cost competitiveness, policymakers are now placing greater emphasis on safety, technological sophistication and international standard-setting. Although compliance will require additional engineering investment, the new rules are expected to strengthen the long-term competitiveness of Chinese EVs in both domestic and export markets.
Safety standards shift from mitigation to prevention
The most significant change is a fundamental shift in regulatory philosophy from mitigating battery failures to preventing catastrophic outcomes altogether.
Under the previous battery safety standard, manufacturers were required only to ensure that battery packs issued a warning signal at least five minutes before a fire or explosion during thermal-runaway testing. The revised standard raises the benchmark substantially: battery systems must neither catch fire nor explode during thermal propagation tests. Moreover, after an alarm is triggered, any smoke generated within the following five minutes must not endanger vehicle occupants.
These requirements redefine acceptable battery performance during thermal runaway. Rather than simply providing occupants with sufficient time to evacuate, manufacturers must demonstrate that battery systems can contain thermal events without escalating into fire or explosion.
Meeting these requirements will require advances across multiple engineering disciplines, including cell chemistry, separator materials, thermal insulation, module design, battery management systems (BMS), cooling architecture and pack-level structural integration.
The standards also introduce new validation procedures, including safety testing after repeated fast-charging cycles and bottom-impact tests for both battery packs and complete vehicles. These additions address increasingly common real-world scenarios, such as underbody impacts from road debris and battery degradation associated with high-power charging.
Physical isolation improves emergency safety
Among the most closely watched provisions is the introduction of a mandatory physical one-touch high-voltage power cutoff requirement, marking a significant evolution in EV electrical safety.
Until now, most electric vehicles have relied primarily on software-controlled systems to isolate high-voltage circuits after severe collisions. Although these systems are generally reliable, major accidents can damage sensors, wiring harnesses or electronic control units, potentially delaying or even preventing electrical isolation.
The new standard requires a dedicated physical disconnect mechanism that can isolate the vehicle’s high-voltage circuit with a single user action, such as a touch or sustained press, rather than relying solely on software commands.
From an engineering perspective, the requirement introduces hardware redundancy into high-voltage protection systems, improving reliability for both occupants and emergency responders. Faster electrical isolation reduces the risks of electric shock, secondary short circuits and fire propagation during rescue operations.
The requirement is also expected to influence future EV platform design, encouraging tighter integration between battery packs, power electronics and vehicle safety systems.
Higher standards drive consolidation
The stricter regulations are likely to increase development costs, particularly for smaller manufacturers with limited research and development (R&D) capabilities.
China’s battery market is already highly concentrated. In 2025, CATL accounted for 43.42% of domestic power battery installations, while BYD held 21.58%, giving the two companies a combined market share of 64.9%. They were followed by CALB (6.98%), Gotion High-Tech (5.65%), EVE Energy (4.11%), Sunwoda (3.17%) and SVOLT Energy (2.7%).
Leading battery manufacturers have already invested heavily in thermal safety technologies, advanced battery management systems, structural battery designs and highly automated manufacturing. These capabilities position them to comply with the revised standards more efficiently than smaller competitors.
As a result, the new regulations could accelerate industry consolidation, reinforcing economies of scale while raising technical barriers to entry across the battery value chain.
The upgraded requirements are also expected to benefit component suppliers. Demand is likely to increase for advanced thermal interface materials, ceramic separators, fire-resistant insulation, high-performance sensors, contactors, mechanical disconnect devices and next-generation battery management systems.
Safety standards enable next-phase growth
The new regulations complement China’s broader industrial strategy outlined in the 15th Five-Year Development Plan for the Lithium Battery Industry, released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance in June.
The roadmap projects China’s lithium battery production and sales to exceed 3,500 GWh by 2030, more than doubling from 2025 levels. Domestic lithium resource self-sufficiency is targeted to increase from around 30% to 60%, while exports are expected to account for 35% of industry output, up from roughly 25% today. Annual battery exports are forecast to exceed USD 120 billion.
The plan also aims to increase average industry R&D intensity by one percentage point, raise manufacturing capacity utilization to 80%, and develop energy storage batteries capable of 15,000 charge-discharge cycles, enabling eight-hour long-duration energy storage applications.
Perhaps most strategically, the roadmap calls for using AI to reshape the lithium battery industry while encouraging Chinese companies to move beyond passive compliance and actively participate in setting global industry standards.
Taken together, these objectives signal a strategic shift from expansion driven primarily by manufacturing scale toward growth based on technology leadership, product quality and innovation.
Global competitiveness through safety leadership
China’s battery industry has expanded at remarkable speed over the past five years. Annual lithium battery sales increased from less than 100 GWh in 2020 to more than 1,700 GWh in 2025, creating a trillion-CNY industry.
Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries have become the dominant chemistry, representing more than 80% of China’s installed EV battery capacity, while nickel-rich ternary batteries remain in a cyclical downturn.
Market demand continues to expand. China’s EV power battery demand is projected to reach 888.7 GWh in 2026, up 15.8% year on year. Passenger vehicles are expected to account for 673 GWh, an increase of 10.8%, while commercial vehicle demand is forecast to grow 34.7% to 216 GWh, driven by accelerating electrification of buses, logistics fleets and heavy-duty transport.
Against this backdrop, the new safety standards represent more than a regulatory update; they are a strategic industrial policy instrument. As Chinese battery manufacturers continue expanding overseas, increasingly stringent safety certification is becoming a competitive differentiator alongside cost, energy density and manufacturing scale.
For global automakers sourcing batteries from China, the revised standards should enhance confidence in product reliability and safety. The move may also help shape future global EV safety standards as China’s influence across the battery value chain continues to grow.