It happened in Shanghai. On 5 September 2026, during a China GT race, a car was caught in a multi-car collision, caught fire, and the driver was trapped in the cockpit. The first person to reach him was not a firefighter. It was not a medical team. It was another racing driver. He stopped, ran across, took a fire extinguisher, tore away damaged bodywork, and pulled the trapped driver out. ...
Abstract: L2 driver assistance, L3/L4 autonomous driving, and humanoid and passenger-carrying quadruped robots share one cybersecurity methodology yet differ in who is responsible, how they are regulated, and how deeply cybersecurity couples with safety. This post systematically maps the requirements, differences, standards/regulations, and best practices across the three families, with a focus on how deeply cybersecurity integrates with functional safety (FuSa), SOTIF, and whole-machine safety. Key takeaways All three families have entered the “cybersecurity is an entry gate” stage, but with a clear gradient: L2 is enforced, L3/L4 has the highest bar, and mobile physical AI is weakest yet fastest-moving. The essence: L2 treats the network as an information asset, L3/L4 as a safety system, and physical AI as a physical safety device. Integration: L2 is coordinated, L3/L4 is integrated/converging, and mobile physical AI is mechanistically unified but method-empty. The adversarial AI surface (data poisoning, evasion, model theft) is the common new gap in 2026, under-covered by 21434/62443. Best practices are highly shared (TARA, defense in depth, SBOM, secure OTA, monitoring, pentest, PIA) and transferable across bodies. 1. Framework: three threads + two axes Three threads decide requirements: whether a human bails out, what physical environment the system operates in, and what the regulator can grab. L2 has a human fallback, L3/L4 has none, and mobile physical AI controls the physical body and balance — deciding whether cybersecurity is an “information asset problem,” a “safety system problem,” or a “physical safety device problem.” ...
Nancy G. Leveson’s An Introduction to System Safety Engineering does two things unusually well. It gives a systematic account of the foundations of classical safety engineering, and it uses systems thinking to address the new problems created by software, automation, complex systems, and organizations. The Chinese edition, 《系统安全工程导论》, was translated jointly by two teams led by Professor Hong Wang and me. ...
Abstract: In early 2026, Harness Engineering rose quickly in the AI engineering community, becoming a third-generation methodology after Prompt Engineering and Context Engineering. Starting from the core concept of Harness Engineering, this article systematically analyzes its deep correspondence with today’s end-to-end intelligent-driving systems across the full lifecycle. It argues that the two fields are structurally isomorphic in their control-theoretic framework, improvement loops, and philosophy of failure response. It also discusses the reference value of Harness Engineering for intelligent-driving user experience and safety engineering, especially SOTIF / ISO 21448. The central finding is that Harness Engineering and automotive safety engineering are not superficially similar metaphors. They are two independently evolved solutions to the same class of root problems, sharing the same underlying operating system. ...
Abstract: Bosch Lead Engineer Thejeswarareddy R open-sourced an agent system that systematically injects automotive engineering standards into Claude Code, covering 75+ skill categories. I forked it and added autonomous driving safety standards (ISO 21448/34502/4804, etc.), upcoming mandatory Chinese national standards, and in-depth SOTIF engineering practices. This article breaks down the project’s architectural highlights and my additions. Figure 1 If you are a junior functional safety engineer in the automotive industry, you have almost certainly lived through this scenario: ...
Abstract: In March 2026, JAMA released the fourth edition (Ver.4.0) of the SAKURA Automated Driving Safety Evaluation Framework — a 344-page national-level safety evaluation technical document. This article systematically examines this safety evaluation system jointly developed by Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and other major Japanese automakers, covering its corporate value, engineering perspectives, core methodology, and the frontier challenges posed by the end-to-end AI era, while exploring its implications for China’s standardization efforts. ...
Abstract: In March 2026, Germany’s VDA published the global automotive industry’s first standardized guideline for AI quality management — VDA 20 AI in Quality Management (191 pages). This article provides an in-depth analysis of its AIQM three-tier risk classification, 80-item checklist, and 12 application cases. It examines the reference value for China’s autonomous driving industry and explores China’s leading advantages and window of opportunity in end-to-end evaluation methodologies and data infrastructure. ...