Rapid development of lidar industry and strong rise of Chinese Enterprises

Almost two years ago, I wrote an article called "lidar, which was criticized by musk, has become popular again recently". At that time, the lidar was still on the eve of the explosion. This year can be called the first year of mass production of lidar. In the second half of the year, a large number of vehicles equipped with lidar have been delivered or will be off the line: ideal L9, Xiaopeng G9, Weilai ES7, SAIC Zhiji L7, WeiPai Mocha, new Audi A6....

These models are one step ahead of the L2 driving assistance system because they are first equipped with lidar. The suppliers behind them - Hesai technology, robosense, innovusion and Valeo are driving into the fast lane of automatic driving.

Yole intelligence, a global market research and strategy consulting company, recently released the lidar report in the automotive and industrial fields in 2022. The report studies the development of the world's leading lidar suppliers in the past years.

China is in the leading position in the global automotive lidar market. Suppliers from China have become the leaders in this field. From 2018 to 2022, China's lidar suppliers accounted for 50% of the share of the front installation points, which was significantly ahead of the regional markets including the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Israel and other regions with lidar enterprises.

Hesai technology is the fastest developing one, accounting for an astonishing 27% of the world's front installation points. In the field of vehicle mounted lidar, the total revenue of Hesai technology ranks first in the world. (currently, lidar suppliers in the industrial and surveying and mapping fields occupy the top five in total revenue). The company has reached fixed-point cooperation with many automobile enterprises, including ideal, Gaohe, Jidu, and lutes. Yole intelligence predicts that more than 200000 mass-produced models equipped with lidar will be launched in 2022, of which 20% will be supported by Hesai technology.

With the continuous improvement of the penetration rate of L2 automatic driving, the laser radar is accelerating to get on the train, which is a trend that can be clearly felt in the past two years. For higher-level automatic driving, the advantages of the current leader are further reflected. In 2021, the laser radar market of L4 automatic driving industry was US $120 million, with a year-on-year growth of 11%. Hesai technology is still the L4 laser radar supplier with the highest total revenue, accounting for an astonishing 58% of the market. It has reached strategic cooperation with overseas automatic driving enterprises cruise, Aurora, motional and zoox, as well as domestic Baidu Apollo, Didi, Xiaoma Zhixing, Wenyuan Zhixing and autox.

The mass production cost of lidar is going down. In addition to Tesla's insistence on the pure vision scheme relying on cameras, the industry has reached a consensus that "autonomous vehicle are equipped with lidar". In this context, more and more OEMs are actively binding with lidar suppliers to establish close cooperation. In addition to further improving performance and optimizing costs, all parties are also accelerating the release of industry standards.

According to the forecast of yole intelligence, the lidar market for automotive and industrial applications will increase from US $2.1 billion in 2021 to US $6.3 billion in 2027, and the application of automotive scenes will become the main driving force. The report points out that there is still room for improvement in the performance and cost of lidar products. However, with the emergence of new technologies such as VCSEL, SIPM and SPAD semiconductors and the application of special chips for lidar, lidar is expected to usher in a stronger growth trend.

Source: Sohu