In March this year a student driving down a motorway in the Chinese province of Anhui
turned on an autopilot system built into her car
which is designed to assist—not replace—human drivers.
Her SU7 electric vehicle made by Xiaomi, a Chinese tech giant
reminded her to keep her hands on the wheel; eight minutes later, it warned of an obstacle ahead.
She took control but the car crashed within seconds, killing all three of the people inside.
Images of the wreckage spread across China.
They sparked heated discussion about China's fast-and-furious roll-out of self-driving tech,
and the pros and cons of the way it is governed.
China is building a decisive global lead in getting cars with autonomous features on the road.
Motoring nerds divide cars into six categories.
A vehicle at level zero has no automation; those at level five do everything by themselves.
In the consumer market, much of the attention at present is on tech that matches level two or level three.
An L2 car can steer, accelerate and brake by itself, but requires a human driver's sustained attention.
A driver in an L3 car can check e-mails and watch TV,
so long as he or she is ready to take over swiftly in an emergency.
These days more than half of new cars sold in China are classed as L2.
Morgan Stanley, a bank, estimates that by 2030 China alone will account for half of the world's L2+ cars, an especially clever subset.
But China also looks ahead of other countries in its roll-out of "robotaxis":
driverless cars classed at L4 that are permitted to ferry around passengers, albeit within limited areas.