600,000 lidar per year! Luminar partners with TPK to set up mass production facility in Asia

Luminar, the world's leading lidar company, announced a partnership with automotive technology supplier TPK on the sidelines of the Shanghai Auto Show on April 17. The two parties will establish and operate a new high-volume production facility to meet the rapidly growing demand for Luminar in Asia.

Luminar's announcement follows the successful opening of a new high-volume manufacturing facility in Mexico on April 13. Luminar has established global production facilities in the United States, Mexico, Thailand and China.

Iris Lidar (photo credit: Luminar website)

Content and direction of cooperation

Luminar is teaming up with TPK to build a new purpose-built high-volume facility in Asia to meet the exponential growth in demand for its products in the region.

Based on current contracts, Luminar expects its lidar sensor products to be installed in millions of vehicles across Asia over the next decade. It is undoubtedly a difficult challenge to complete the industrial mass production of millions of Lidar, and TPK, as a service provider for Apple, Tesla and other enterprises, has made remarkable achievements in the mass production of innovative high-performance and vehicle scale products, and the cooperation between the two parties can be regarded as a mutually beneficial and win-win move.

In the first phase, the new Asian plant will be able to produce up to 600,000 Luminar lidar sensors per year to support joint projects by carmakers including Mercedes-Benz. As demand exceeds these levels, factories have the ability to expand capacity further. Reflecting its confidence in Luminar's potential, TPK also plans to purchase Luminar shares, given Luminar's leading technology and economic trajectory.

Leo Hsieh, President and CEO of TPK, said, "We are very grateful and excited to have the opportunity to work with Luminar, a world leader in autonomous driving technology. This collaboration once again demonstrates TPK's strong engineering and automation capabilities in mass production, working with a variety of leading technology providers to bring cutting-edge products to market efficiently and quickly."

In addition to building the new factory, Luminar also celebrated the unveiling of Volvo EX90 Excellence at the show, which will feature Luminar lidar as standard in the next generation of safety and autonomous driving features.

"Volvo has witnessed our strong execution and industrialization at our New Mexico plant and will continue to double down on Luminar -- in this case by standardizing our new Volvo EX90 Excellence model for the Chinese market," said Austin Russell, founder and CEO of Luminar. The EX90 Excellence is our safest four-seater ever, with an invisible safety shield made possible one by one by our latest inside and outside sensing technology, as well as Luminar's standard Lidar technology and groundbreaking driver understanding systems."

China's lidar market demand is growing

The strong demand for lidar in China was evident at this year's Shanghai Auto Show, where enthusiasm for next-generation safety and autonomous driving experiences is growing.

About half of the estimated 20 million cars sold in China last year were from foreign carmakers, and Luminar was among a host of companies showcased new models with lidar (from Tundatom, Beixing, Brightway Intelligence, T&D, etc.).

Most of Luminar's more than 20 production models are also aimed at the Chinese market. For example, the Volvo Cars EX90 Excellence, a new top-of-the line all-electric SUV unveiled in Shanghai yesterday, features Luminar lidar as standard on every vehicle, with its Iris lidar seamlessly integrated into the roof.

Source: OFweek