From popularization to explosion: taking stock of 12 lidar star companies

2022 is known as the first year of the popularization of lidar . The previous year, the number of lidars installed as standard on the front of passenger cars in the Chinese market was less than 8,000. In 2022, the Chinese passenger car market (excluding imported models) Sales of lidar models were 111.4 thousand, a year-on-year increase of 2667.4%, and the total number of lidars installed reached 129.6 thousand. The prospects are very promising.

If lidar was still a "sharp tool" for new car companies to attract consumers in the past two years, now, with the acceleration of the application of lidar from foreign or joint venture brands in cars, lidar has become the standard for intelligent applications of global car companies. This article will take stock of the commercial progress of some well-known companies on the lidar track in recent years.

Sagitar Juchuang

Sagitar Juchuang masters the three core technologies of chips , LiDAR sensors and perception software. Its products cover mechanical and MEMS semi-solid lidar, and also provide lidar perception fusion solutions. RS-LiDAR-M1 is the company's flagship product and has received fixed orders for multiple vehicle models, including Weimar M7, Xiaopeng G9, Zhiji More than 50 models, including L7, GAC AION LX Plus, and Lotus ELETRE, have also reached strategic cooperation with many car companies and autonomous driving manufacturers, covering unmanned logistics vehicles, robots, RoboTaxi, RoboTruck, RoboBus, and new smart transportation technologies. Infrastructure and other subdivisions.

At the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, BYD looked up to U8, FAW Hongqi E001 and E202, and Chery's high-end car brand Xingtu's two new models STERRA ES and STERRA ET, all equipped with Sagitar Juchuang M series lidar. Among the Sagitar Juchuang lidar models, there are not only new car manufacturing forces, but also state-owned and private car companies.

Beixing Photon

Beixing Photonics is a non-mechanical solid-state array lidar company with an independent technical route. Its independently developed 512-line high-performance automotive-grade lidar AD2 has a 120°*25.6° field of view and supports 10Hz refresh frame rate and resolution. The accuracy is as high as 0.05°*0.05°, it can clearly identify the outline and shape of small targets 200m away, and it has full field of view high-definition detection capabilities with 0.05° vertical resolution.

AD2 adopts 2D high-precision scanning and many other BeiWake self-developed technologies. It has a high-density point cloud of more than 3,000,000 per second and a detection range of more than 200 meters, and can effectively solve the visual pain points of corner cases such as darkness and strong light. Application Designed according to 7×24 hours to adapt to various scenarios. AD2 has also achieved a comprehensive balance in terms of high performance, car-standard reliability, cost, appearance and size. It has obtained a mass production quota of 180,000 units from a new domestic car-making force. It will be fully delivered in 2023, marking the entry of cars into a high-wire harness era. Ultra-high definition "512 era".

BeiXing also jointly launched the country's first 2K image-level high-precision lidar "Bei Yao Beta" with Didi Autonomous Driving, making the product more suitable for L4 Robotaxi scenarios. This year and next, Beiwake’s goal is to bring car-grade lidar into models worth 300,000 yuan or even 200,000 yuan.

Hesai Technology

Hesai Technology deployed mechanical lidar in the early stage, and later focused on the chip development strategy to develop hybrid solid-state lidar. The company has completed the V1.0 lidar chip architecture and will develop its own dedicated driver chips, analog front-end chips, waveform digital processing chips, SoC system-on- chips, etc. in the future to improve the overall integration of lidar.

Its AT128 adopts the VCSEL+SiPM technical route and integrates 128 independent lasers with industry-leading chip technology . By simultaneously emitting 128 laser beams into the three-dimensional space, it achieves an ultra-high 1200×128 global resolution, and the number of pixel frequencies reaches 153 Thousands/second. AT128 has been selected for many models, including Gaohe HiPhi Z, Jidu ROBO-01, Ideal L series, Geely Lotus Eletre, Changan SDA, SAIC Feifan and many other models. The company's multiple lidars serve many A variety of autonomous driving scenarios to help implement commercial applications.

At present, the monthly delivery volume of AT128 has exceeded 20,000 units. By the end of 2022, the cumulative delivery volume of Hesai lidar will reach 100,000 units. In addition, its 128-line high-performance lidar Pandar128 has been installed in the XC90, the main operating model of Didi’s self-driving Robotaxi. The Robovan, the self-driving freight truck of L4 autonomous driving company WeRide Zhixing, is equipped with the Hesai Pandar series lidar. Xijing Technology’s new The electric version of Q-Truck driverless commercial vehicle is equipped with Hesai XT series lidar.

Tudatong

Focusing on image-level ultra-long-range lidar, Tudatong is the leading provider of 300-line lidar. Its high-performance main-view and side-view radar combination solution Falcon uses a 1550nm laser light source , which can detect farther than the 905nm light source commonly used in the industry. The longest distance can reach 500 meters, and the detection distance is 250 meters at 10% reflectivity. , is one of the lidars with the longest detection range currently on the market.

All NIO models are equipped with Tudatong lidar as standard equipment, which has been put into mass production on three models. As of the end of 2022, the actual delivery volume of Tudatong passenger car front-end equipment is 35,900 units. In April 2023, Tudatong and Zhitu Technology, the leader in commercial vehicle autonomous driving, officially reached a fixed-point cooperation. Based on the technical advantages of their respective hardware and software, they will jointly explore the in-depth integration of high-performance lidar and multi-scenario intelligent logistics solutions. Promote the commercialization of autonomous driving for commercial vehicles.

Luminar

Luminar is the global leader in autonomous driving lidar technology. It builds new solid-state lidar from the chip level and has achieved technological breakthroughs in all core components. It can be integrated with self-developed custom software to achieve turnkey solutions for autonomous driving technology. Luminar has acquired detector chip, laser chip and signal processing chip manufacturers in recent years to accelerate vertical integration of the industry chain and control costs while optimizing the performance of lidar products. Luminar Iris 1550nm lidar can achieve a detection range of more than 500m. The detection distance can still reach 250 meters when the reflectivity is less than 10%, and has centimeter-level measurement accuracy.

Luminar holds the position of passenger cars such as SAIC, Volvo, and Polestar. Feifan R7, Volvo XC90, Polestar 3 and other models equipped with Luminar Iris 1550nm lidar are about to be mass-produced. In addition, the company has established partnerships with Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Mobileye, and Pony.ai When customers reach cooperation, it is expected to obtain more designated mass production projects in the future, gain stability in shipments, and then reach the goal of US$500 BOM.

Valeo

Valeo is the first manufacturer in the world to release the automotive-grade lidar Valeo SCALA and achieve mass production. Its third-generation lidar SCALA 3 can generate three-dimensional images of the car's surrounding environment in real time, with more than 12 million pixels per second (it is the equivalent of SCALA 2 16 times) The detection range for low-reflectivity objects is 200 meters, and the detection range for high-reflectivity objects is 300 meters. Almost all objects can be seen, especially objects that cannot be identified by the naked eye, which greatly increases the visibility of passenger cars. range of applications, thus increasing customer value.

Currently, SCALA 3 has been selected by a leading Asian manufacturer and a leading American robotaxi company, and has received orders of more than 1 billion euros. Valeo has been providing lidar for Mercedes-Benz since its second-generation lidar SCALA® 2. Stellantis has chosen to use Valeo's third-generation lidar, which will be installed on various models of its brands starting in 2024. Previously, the first and second generation products have achieved mass production, and customers include Audi and other car companies.

Innoviz

Innoviz focuses on the development of solid-state lidar sensors, reducing costs by reducing components and significantly reducing the price of solid-state radar sensors. Innoviz has three major product lines: InnovizOne has a maximum detection range of 250 meters, is suitable for L3-L5 cars, and will be mass-produced in the BMW 7 Series in 2023; InnovizTwo costs more than 70% lower than InnovizOne and has significantly improved performance, mainly for L2+ cars As well as the L3-L4 market, it is used in brands such as Volkswagen; Innoviz360's performance, cost and durability have been significantly improved, with a maximum detection range of 300m. It is mainly aimed at L4/5 level autonomous driving and is planned to be mass-produced in 2024.

Innoviz has accumulated valuable experience by working with Tier 1 Magna to obtain BMW orders. In addition to promoting the mass production of the BMW project, Innoviz has also received a US$4 billion order from Volkswagen and will begin mass production in 2025 to provide lidar hardware and supporting software to CARIAD, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group. In September 2022, a leading Asian OEM has also selected Innoviz as a direct lidar supplier for mass-produced passenger cars.

Huawei

Huawei has been providing car companies with a series of sensor solutions for smart driving. Its 96-line medium and long-range lidar has a ranging capability of 150m (10%) and a field of view of 120°×25°, which can achieve pedestrian and vehicle detection coverage in urban areas. , and has high-speed vehicle detection capabilities to meet the needs of human and vehicle distance measurement in urban areas, highways and other scenes. It is evenly distributed through horizontal and vertical wiring harnesses in the full field of view, and its small size is suitable for front-mounted mass production models.