Silicon Valley company develops lidar for less than $500

Silicon Valley startup Luminar has developed a new sub-$500 lidar sensing kit that could make the first batch of highly automated cars for consumers as early as 2022 if more automakers adopt it, Phoenix Technology reported.

The high cost of lidar is one of the main obstacles to the widespread adoption of self-driving cars, both for commercial delivery and self-driving taxi fleets being developed by manufacturers such as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., as well as for passenger cars for consumers. Individual sensors currently cost as little as about $6,000 and as much as more than $100,000.

Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell said the company has developed a low-cost lidar platform that integrates hardware and software and is currently being tested by several automakers.

Luminar's latest "Iris" system comes in two versions: one is a "highway autonomous driving" version that does not require hands-free control; the other is a cheaper version that can achieve some automated functions, such as automatic emergency steering and braking. Russell said that the first version is higher in production and priced at less than $1,000, while the second version is connected to the automaker's advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) and is expected to cost less than $500.

Automakers and suppliers are increasingly skeptical about how quickly fully autonomous systems will be adopted, given their high cost and complexity. In the meantime, they have begun focusing on deploying more ADAS features, which share some components with fully autonomous systems but are much cheaper and can generate much-needed revenue to pay for the development costs of fully autonomous systems.

Steve Lambright, vice president of marketing at lidar startup AEye, which develops components for both autonomous driving and ADAS, said it would be easier for manufacturers to generate revenue and deploy lidar-powered ADAS systems than fully autonomous driving systems.

Meanwhile, a long-predicted shakeout in the lidar industry has yet to materialize, judging by recent investments and acquisitions, even as the industry has yet to embrace a single lidar technology.

Israeli startup Innoviz has just completed its Series C funding round, raising a total of $252 million, more than any other competitor, from investors including SoftBank Ventures Asia and several large Chinese investors.

A new company emerging in the lidar industry, called Sense Photonics, completed its Series A financing this week, raising more than $43 million from corporate investors including Samsung Ventures and Shell Ventures.

Silicon Valley self-driving startup Aurora has received investments from Amazon and Hyundai Motor, and recently acquired Montana-based lidar startup Blackmore.

Like the company, Blackmore is developing a more expensive lidar technology called FMCW. Mehdi Asghari, CEO of SiLC, said FMCW uses more expensive components, but the device consumes less power and can be made more compact, and will eventually be used in car headlights, rearview mirrors and bodies.