Hesai say deliveries of their AT128 lidar have exceeded 10,000 units in a month, making them the world’s first automotive lidar company to reach this milestone. This sensor is not the first hybrid solid-state lidar to enter the market, but it immediately won multiple contracts from leading automakers—including Li Auto; JiDU; HiPhi, and Lotus.
Hesai have optimised the internal architecture of this sensor, keeping the 128 channels despite the cost-reduction imperative. A ‘genuine 128-channel’ lidar, the company say, can precisely scan the environment into uniform, unstitched point clouds to help vehicles ‘see’ the 3D world clearly in real time. 128 laser channels also provide greater safety redundancy. Even if one laser channel fails, the rest will continue to operate to ensure normal function of the lidar. The AT128 was also designed with enhanced component integration—this minimises manual assembly to avoid human errors, in turn significantly improving production efficiency and consistency.
A strategic advantage for Hesai is their in-house manufacturing, facilitating rapid iteration and quality control crucial for automotive lidar. Their self-built factory enables a higher degree of control during each manufacturing step, allowing timely optimisations to ensure large-scale, high-quality mass production and delivery. The entire production line is 90 per cent automatic; on average, a qualified lidar unit is completed every 60 seconds. Hesai also have invested nearly USD $200m in their ‘Maxwell intelligent factory’, which has a planned annual production capacity of over one million units. This factory is expected to enter operation next year.
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Yole Intelligence recently pointed out the strong emergence of China’s ADAS/AD industry. Chinese lidar manufacturers such as Hesai and Robosense have become important in the global lidar market, recently winning development contracts with the likes of Li Auto; JiDU; HiPhi, and Xpeng. These suppliers could also arrive on the European market via these Chinese carmakers in the coming years.