Urban NOA adoption set to surge in China

China's autonomous driving sector is entering a new phase of commercialization, with urban navigation-on-autopilot emerging as a key inflection point for mass adoption, according to a new report from China Insights Consultancy.

The penetration of urban NOA solutions — enabling point-to-point assisted driving in cities —is projected to rise to 62 percent by 2030 from 11 percent in 2025, said the consultancy in its report released earlier this week.

CIC attributed the growth to the convergence of technological progress, supply expansion and rising consumer demand.

Advances in world models, reinforcement learning and end-to-end architectures have improved system performance in complex "long-tail" driving scenarios, making Urban NOA more reliable and smoother in real-world use.

On the supply side, CIC noted that automakers are increasingly standardising urban NOA across multiple vehicle models to enhance competitiveness, while consumer preference is also strengthening.

A McKinsey China Auto Consumer Insights 2026 survey showed 69 percent of respondents now expect advanced intelligent driving features such as Urban NOA as standard when purchasing a vehicle.

CIC said mass-market vehicles will become the primary driver of adoption over the next five years, with penetration in the 100,000 yuan ($14,796)–200,000 yuan segment expected to rise from 3.8 percent in 2025 to 62.7 percent in 2030.

Among suppliers, CIC highlighted Momenta, which it said held a 65 percent share of China's independent urban NOA solution provider market between March 2025 and February 2026, ranking first in the segment.

The company's clients include major Chinese automakers as well as global manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, with deployments across Asia, Europe and Oceania.

CIC said competition in urban NOA is shifting away from algorithmic capability alone toward end-to-end system delivery, where scale, data accumulation, cost efficiency and deployment capability are becoming key barriers to entry.

It estimated that independent solution providers could capture around 75 percent of the urban NOA market by 2030, reinforcing the position of leading players with established commercial deployment capabilities.

CIC added that urban NOA is laying the groundwork for Level 4 autonomous driving, with robotaxis, robovans and robotrucks expected to move toward scaled commercialization over the coming decade.

It cited projections that the global robotaxi market could reach $81.8 billion by 2030, with China accounting for $38.1 billion.