November 17, 2025 - China Wants to Slow Down EVs

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for  November 17, 2025, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

Back in 2006, when Tesla emerged from stealth mode to reveal the original Roadster, there was a key differentiator that helped establish the brand and start to convince people that electric vehicles could be appealing on their own merits. It was fast, in fact, it was very fast for the time, with a 0-60 time of just 4 seconds while also offering over 200 miles of driving range. Up to that point, EVs typically had more modest performance; few had ever managed to deliver even 100 miles of range per charge. Nearly two decades after the Roadster, that acceleration time seems almost quaint, as does the range. Since Tesla's initial success, every EV startup has bragged about its acceleration capabilities and even trucks like the Ford F-150 Lightning deliver acceleration to match the Roadster, while many EVs are getting down to 2 seconds. This is far more performance than most typical drivers can safely handle, and it's more than we need for daily driving. 

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security is now trying to address a spate of crashes with new regulations. Under the draft Technical Conditions for Motor Vehicle Operation Safety, manufacturers will have to default to a performance mode that provides 0-100 km/h in no less than 5 seconds. Manufacturers can provide higher performance levels, but they must be selected by the driver after starting the vehicle; it cannot be the default. That seems like a very reasonable, common-sense approach that the industry as a whole should adopt. Zero to 60 in 5 seconds is still much faster than the average of about 7.7 seconds and the average 30 years ago, which was typically over 10 seconds. Other new rules include cutting off power circuits when speed changes by more than 25 km/h in 150 ms, such as in a crash or when airbags deploy and ensuring that a battery cannot catch fire for at least 5 minutes after an alert for buses over 6 meters long. They also want biometric authentication or account login to verify a driver has proper training before they can use some advanced driver assistance systems, and a requirement for both hands-off monitoring and driver eye-gaze monitoring for systems that combine speed and steering control, like Tesla Autopilot or Full Self-Driving. 

It's time for regulators everywhere to adopt such rules.

Thanks for listening.