Lidar is gaining traction and market prevalence on premium EVs in China, where the EV market is strongest in the world—8.5 million units a year. Chinese brands offer lidar on premium EVs to improve safety and driving assistance functions compared to pure-camera systems. As a consequence, the rest of the world’s premium brands will have to follow the trend as well to compete on the Chinese market.
That, in turn, can only lead to more affordable lidars by dint of volume economy. Huawai claims they can reach USD $200 for a lidar, and Hesai announced a lower margin with the production ramp-up due to strong price competition; find more about that in this issue of the DVN-Lidar newsletter. Luminar’s strategy is to design their own semiconductors to further reduce costs, with the creation of Luminar Semiconductor.
Affordable solutions are coming for short range lidars as well; see the Elmos interview in this issue. Elmos takes benefit of their long experience in CMOS automotive components and lighting to design low cost VCSELs and SPADs, leading to compact, affordable flash lidar designs. This will speed up automated parking applications.
Short-range lidar applications will be a key topic of the DVN Lidar Deep Dive II on 6 June; here in this newsletter you’ll find that event’s docket.
Last but not least, Valeo announced orders for their Scala3 lidar have topped one billion Euros—quite a milestone!
Be sure and save the dates for these forthcoming high-content, high-value DVN-Lidar events:
• Deep Dive II (Europe): 5-6 June; at Dorint Pallas Wiesbaden
• DVN-L Deep Dive III (USA) : 29-30 August in San Francisco Bay area
• DVN-L Conference (Europe): 29-30 November at Dorint Pallas Wiesbaden
We’re ever so glad you’re here with us in the DVN lidar community, enjoy this 13th newsletter!
All best,
Alain Servel
DVN LIDAR SENIOR ADVISOR