Automotive Vision Research: Average Camera Installation per Vehicle Reaches 5.2 Units, and Front-View Tricam Installation Exceeds 1.2 Million Sets.
From January to September 2025, the total installations of cameras in new passenger cars in China reached 87.00 million units, a year-on-year increase of 35.5%, including:
Front-view cameras: 16.596 million units, up 43.6% year-on-year;
Side-view ADS cameras: 15.024 million units, up 114.7% year-on-year;
Rear-view ADS cameras: 3.240 million units, up 159.9% year-on-year;
Surround-view cameras: 37.516 million units, up 23.9% year-on-year;
Rear-view (reversing) cameras: 5.829 million units, down 11.6% year-on-year;
Streaming media cameras: 0.717 million units, up 83.5% year-on-year;
In-cabin cameras: 5.307 million units, up 28.2% year-on-year;
Driving recorder cameras: 2.342 million units, down 11.6% year-on-year.
It is expected that the full-year total installations of cameras in 2025 will definitely exceed 110 million units and may reach 120 million units.
In terms of total installations of front-view cameras, they were largely installed in vehicles in the price range of RMB100,000-300,000, accounting for 74.1% of the total. Major brands in this price range targeting the mass market included Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, and BYD. Of the total front-view camera installations, BYD alone made up 22.2%, leading Tesla in second place by 14.4 percentage points.
In terms of front-view camera product forms, monocular cameras still dominate but their proportion has decreased. From January to September 2025, monocular cameras swept 82.9% of the total front-view camera installations, a like-on-like decrease of 14.8 percentage points. The installation of tricams has surged, with 1.296 million sets installed from January to September 2025, up by 40,385.6% on an annual basis, mainly driven by brands such as BYD, Denza, Fangchengbao, and Hongqi. In February 2025, BYD launched the God’s Eye system, of which the vision-only solution God’s Eye C adopts a set of front-view tricam: 8MP isomorphic wide-angle camera (FOV: 12°) on both sides and 8MP telephoto camera (FOV: 30°) in the middle. This intelligent driving solution was then installed on multiple BYD-related models including Qin L, Song PLUS NEV, Seal 06 DM-i, Song L DM-i, Han, and Sealion 06 DM-i. From January to September 2025, BYD alone took an over 80% share in the total front-view tricam installations.
The Hongqi Tiangong 05, launched in February 2025, is equipped with the 10V solution from Zhuoyu, which includes a set of front-view inertial navigation tricam. Within 2025, this tricam product will also be installed on Hongqi Tiangong 06, Hongqi Tiangong 08, and Hongqi EH7.
In terms of camera resolution:
① 8MP front-view cameras find rapid application. From January to September 2025, the installations of 8MP front-view cameras reached 8.067 million units, a year-on-year increase of nearly 250%, accounting for 48.6% of the total front-view camera installations, down 28.3 percentage points on the prior-year period.
In addition to front-view cameras, the application of 8MP side-view ADS cameras and rear-view ADS cameras also sustained a year-on-year growth. Among them, the installations of 8MP surround-view ADS cameras from January to September 2025 were 1.874 million units, a year-on-year increase of 10%; the installations of 8MP rear-view ADS cameras were 0.486 million units, a year-on-year increase of 60.9%.
In the case of ONVO L90 launched in July 2025, this model is equipped with 7 8MP cameras: 2 front-view cameras, 4 side-view ADS cameras, and 1 rear-view ADS camera. In addition to the ONVO L90, models such as ONVO L60, new NIO ET5/ET5T/7/9, and Zeekr 009 also adopt the 8MP front-view + side-view ADS + rear-view ADS combination.
② Surround-view cameras are upgraded to 3MP. Surround-view cameras have been upgraded from the initial 1MP to 3MP. For example, the Second-Generation Haval Xiaolong MAX, launched in April 2025, is equipped with 4 3MP surround-view cameras, paired with 2 8MP front-view stereo cameras and 1 3MP rear-view camera, enabling intelligent driving functions such as cross-floor homezone parking assist; Li MEGA adopts 4 3MP surround-view cameras, combined with 8MP front-view camera, 8MP rear-view camera, and other sensors, enabling multiple parking functions such as automated parking, cross-floor valet parking, and wheel hub mode (which can intuitively display the positions of the four wheel hubs to assist drivers in avoiding scratches).
The higher level of intelligent driving drives up the camera installations per vehicle. As of September 2025, the number of cameras installed per vehicle has increased to 5.2 units from 2.2 units in 2020.
Taking the rapidly penetrating NOA function in recent years as an example, from January to September 2025, the installation rate of NOA (Highway + Urban) as standard reached 21.4%, with installations exceeding 3.5 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 271.0%. The mainstream sensor configuration for Highway NOA is 10/11/12V + 1/3/5R, while the mainstream sensor configurations for Urban NOA include 11VnRnL (lidar + vision) and 11VnR (vision-only solution). According to ResearchInChina, from January to September 2025, the number of cameras installed per vehicle for Highway NOA was 10.7 units, and for Urban NOA, it was 11.2 units.
In April 2025, Huawei released ADS 4.0, with sensors including: 3 Huawei self-developed 192-channel lidars, 11 8MP high-definition cameras, 6 Huawei radars, and 12 ultrasonic radars, supporting Highway + Urban NCA.
The Lynk & Co 900, launched in April 2025, adopts the 11V5R12U1L sensor solution, including an 8MP front-view camera. The Lynk & Co 900 supports such intelligent driving functions as Highway + Urban NOA, homezone parking assist, and remote parking assist (RAPA).
In addition to the above-mentioned increase in installations and display resolution, automotive vision has also undergone new changes in product form. At the Auto China 2024, Zhuoyu officially displayed the lidar + camera fusion perception sensor—Jimu 1.0. This product is an automotive-grade integrated sensor that innovatively combines Zhuoyu's unique pair of inertial navigation stereo cameras, one telephoto monocular camera, and one lidar. At the Auto Shanghai 2025, Zhuoyu brought the Jimu 2.0, which is smaller in size and lighter in weight, and has higher angular resolution compared to the 1.0 version.
On April 22, 2025, Huawei released a lidar + camera fusion product: Limera. Installed in a cockpit, Limera is compact in size and has both active laser scanning and passive image processing capabilities. Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA) stated that it "can recognize harsh light, detect irregular obstacles, and support general obstacle detection". It can identify obstacles 30 centimeters high at night and support the intelligent driving system to achieve comfortable braking at a speed of 100km/h. In August 2025, it officially announced that the new AITO M7will be equipped with Limera. The new AITO M7 adds functions such as Emergency Steering Assist (ESA), obstacle detection in harsh light environments, and general obstacle detection such as traffic cones. In October 2025, the monthly installations of Limera on the AITO M7 reached 12,000 units.
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