Can lidar have the last laugh?

As for improving resolution, the technical routes for one-dimensional scanning and two-dimensional scanning are different. One-dimensional scanning improves resolution by physically stacking more laser transceivers . The technical difficulty is low, but the material cost increases significantly. ; Two-dimensional scanning is achieved through sophisticated scanning control, but the technology is difficult and the material cost is low.

Sagitar Juchuang believes that there are two trends in the development of lidar. The cost of medium and long-range lidar continues to decline, and the 940~905nm solution has become the mainstream of ultra-long-range ultra-high-definition lidar.

Cost reduction

The market's requirements for lidar obviously go beyond technological innovation. While maintaining high performance, cost reduction is the absolute focus.

Since last year, due to the impact of the "price war", the pressure on car companies to reduce costs has been obvious, and this has been transmitted to the upstream and downstream of the automotive industry chain . With the large-scale and rapid expansion of NOA in urban scenes, cost reduction is also the only way.

"The high cost of early LiDAR is indeed an objective factor that makes it difficult to popularize it, but now the cost of vehicle LiDAR has dropped to several thousand yuan, and it will be even lower in the future. LiDAR will be popularized in more smart driving models." Said the relevant person in charge of Sagitar Juchuang.

Although after years of efforts in the industry, the price of lidar has been reduced from the initial hundreds of thousands to several thousand yuan, car companies still have strong demands for cost reduction for lidar. After all, the camera only costs a few hundred yuan.

The main comparison object of lidar cost is still pure vision solution.

On the purely visual road, Tesla has a first-mover advantage. The resources and time Tesla has invested are obvious. Its investment in chips for light algorithm training has reached several billion yuan. This does not include other hardware investment and construction costs required to establish a data center , as well as high maintenance and operation costs in the future. The hidden costs of purely visual solutions are worth considering.

For lidar, "scale" and "chipization" are the keys to achieving cost reduction.

Needless to say, cost reduction can be achieved through economies of scale. With the increase in market demand and the expansion of production scale, production costs can be significantly reduced.

Chip-based lidar integrates hundreds of discrete devices on one chip through integrated design to significantly reduce material costs and labor production costs. Yijing Technology stated that it has achieved a high degree of chip-based and integrated laser radar through architectural innovation. The overall cost of the EZ6 has been effectively reduced, and its price has also broken the 2,000 yuan boundary.

The main difficulties are high investment and long development cycle. High initial R&D investment and continuous technology accumulation are indispensable factors. The integration and chip-based achievements of companies such as Hesai Technology and Sagitar Juchuang have only been able to show their strength after years of layout and accumulation.

Establishing a vertically integrated R&D-production system is also one of the main ways.

Take Hesai Maxwell Intelligent Manufacturing Center as an example. This is a factory integrating R&D and manufacturing with an estimated annual production capacity of 1.2 million units. With the increase in production capacity utilization and the commissioning of new lower-cost production lines, the cost of Hesai lidar has also increased. Further declines are expected.

Obviously, the price of lidar cannot drop endlessly. In a stable value system, the price of lidar will remain in a stable range with the development of technology and large-scale mass production.

If one day, when cost is not enough to hinder the development of lidar, relevant companies may have to start thinking about the next question: How to achieve high-quality development?

quality and growth

Whether it is technological innovation or cost reduction and efficiency improvement, it is all for the purpose of obtaining more orders and promoting development.

Almost all players are waiting for a critical point of technology cost reduction and shipment volume, so that they can use the scale effect to smooth out the early R&D and production investment and enter a positive trajectory of profitability. Hesai's operating cash flow was positive for three consecutive quarters last year, which has shown the possibility of profitability for lidar companies.

Regarding the development of the lidar industry in 2024, "growth" is undoubtedly the biggest expectation of all companies.

“According to third-party forecasts such as Yole Intelligence, LiDAR will accelerate in the next five years. Global LiDAR shipments are expected to reach approximately 6.6 million and 79.34 million units in 2025 and 2030 respectively, of which China will ship 2.92 million units respectively. and about 31.54 million pieces, so we believe that by 2024, the total delivery volume of the lidar industry will cross the 'million level' mark." said the relevant person in charge of Sagitar Juchuang.

This confidence does not come out of thin air. The involution of urban NOA and the development of L3 have given the market great confidence.

What Hesai Technology refers to is "quality".

When talking about first-mover advantage and the Matthew Effect, one thing is actually inseparable: products and companies that have been tested by the market are obviously more likely to be favored again.

Hesai said: "At present, several lidar companies have begun large-scale delivery and have gone through a period of actual user quality verification. Some lidar companies have not yet started large-scale delivery, or have just started. These products will definitely experience the market test.”

This is a test for second- and third-tier lidar manufacturers. For companies that have already gained a dominant position, they must further consolidate their moats.

In fact, not only product quality, but also the development quality of enterprises and industries are changing.

After getting through the early difficult moments, lidar companies began to pay more attention to technological innovation and research and development to improve product performance and competitiveness, while also reducing low-level duplication of construction. This includes investment in research and development of key technologies such as laser transmitters , detectors, and signal processing algorithms, as well as promoting the standardization and modular design of lidar technology .

In order to expand market share and technological influence, lidar companies have begun to seek more partnerships. This kind of cooperation can share resources, reduce R&D costs, and accelerate product time to market. At the same time, companies are beginning to seek large-scale production, optimize supply chain management, and improve efficiency through automated production lines. The quality control of the production process has been strengthened and more complete after-sales services have been provided.

"In fact, the real difficulty of lidar lies in engineering and mass production. It is not difficult to make an ultra-high-performance product in the laboratory. What is difficult is to achieve large-scale mass production of this product and ensure the high quality of each product , it will not break down even if it is installed on the user's car for many years, which tests a company's engineering and manufacturing capabilities, and this point is easily overlooked." Hesai said bluntly.

Coupled with the opening of the global market, Hesai, Sagitar Juchuang, etc. began to implement international strategies and expand overseas markets. These characteristics add up to facilitate the high-quality development of lidar companies and the entire industry. It can be said that the lidar industry has entered a new, more mature and standardized development stage, and some leading companies with strong strength have been formed.

However, we cannot ignore some different voices. Under the flowers, thorns grow secretly.

Some domestic companies have already shouted the slogan of going away from lidar and started to try pure visual solutions. Although it is difficult to catch up with Tesla, the emergence of these voices is enough to make lidar companies wary and afraid of becoming "go away." After "High Precision Map", another player was "departed".

In 2024, can lidar have the last laugh? Or can vehicle-mounted lidar continue to develop?

It can be said that lidar is not in danger of being completely replaced in the short term, and car companies may be wavering. However, due to considerations such as safety, reliability, and product marketing, this round of technological route exploration has attracted most smartphones. The solution adopted by drivers is still to retain lidar.

As for the longer-term answer, just leave it to time.