The First Year Of Large-Scale Investment Of Laser Radar Is Approaching

On May 25, Tesla, an American electric vehicle manufacturer, announced that it would eliminate the use of millimeter wave radar in autopilot automatic driving assistance system. This auto driving technology leading car company will adopt a more radical automatic driving perception scheme.

Environmental awareness is one of the core technologies of automatic driving, which can not be realized without cameras, millimeter wave radar, lidar and other sensors. At present, there are mainly two types of solutions on the perception level of automatic driving technology: one is composed of low-cost components such as camera led and millimeter wave radar, namely pure visual computing, and the typical representative is Tesla; One is led by lidar, combined with camera, millimeter wave radar and other components.

"The main advantage of vision is low cost and easy to achieve mass production. The advantage of lidar is accurate measurement, but the disadvantage is high cost. Each of these two options has its own advantages and disadvantages. " Yang diange, Professor of the school of vehicles and transportation of Tsinghua University, said in an interview with the reporter of the 21st century economic report.

Although Tesla focuses on visual solutions and Tesla CEO musk has publicly criticized lidar for many times, many car companies regard lidar technology as the best solution to achieve higher-level automatic driving function.

Since this year, many domestic car companies have announced plans for mass production of lidar. Weilai et7 will use a tudaton lidar, Xiaopeng P5 plans to carry Dajiang lidar, polar fox arcfox alpha s Huawei hi version plans to carry three Huawei lidar on the vehicle.

"In 2021, lidar will usher in the first year of mass production." On May 27, Mr. Bao Junwei, co-founder and CEO of tudaton, said at the 8th International Intelligent Network Alliance Annual Automotive Technology Conference (cicv 2021).

Is lidar needed at this stage?

It has been a period of time for the development of the vehicle level lidar. In 2017, Valeo mass produced the first car size class lidar, which was mounted on the Audi A8. On May 31, Gu Jianmin, CTO of Valeo China, told 21st century economic report that Valeo has produced and delivered nearly 130000 lidars worldwide.

It is understood that Valeo's lidar was put into mass production on Nissan legend in March this year; The second generation lidar is in mass production on the brand-new Mercedes Benz S-class, and will be mass produced in another car company in Asia next year.

However, Valeo's lidar is not fully equipped on mass production vehicles, but on some versions of some models. When Weilai et7, Xiaopeng P5 and alpha s were released, Weilai, Xiaopeng and arcfox all claimed to be the first enterprise equipped with mass production lidar. The products of the three auto companies have appeared in succession in the first half of this year, and they plan to start delivery at the end of the year or in the first quarter of next year.

"Lidar is a very new and expensive thing. The automobile industry should make great determination, not just follow suit. Make up your mind to be useful, not up to lidar. " Bao Junwei told reporters of the 21st century economic report.

It is worth noting that more and more auto companies announced that they would adopt lidar this year. However, some car companies did not have lidar in the previous vehicle design planning. Moreover, it is not necessary to use lidar for the auxiliary driving function of some automobile enterprises.

The mass production application of lidar is closely related to the development of automatic driving technology. There is a general consensus in the industry that it is not necessary to carry lidar in the stage of L1 and L2 assisted driving, but it will increase the cost. However, it is still controversial whether to use lidar for high-level automatic driving above L3 and L4.

Leilei Shinohara, vice president of R & D of Shenzhen Suteng juchuang Technology Co., Ltd., believes that it is not feasible to achieve a high level of automatic driving without lidar.

"The travel scene of transportation industry is too complex. Congestion, bad weather and environmental interference make it not enough to rely on visual sensors or even add millimeter wave." Said Leilei Shinohara.

In brief, the biggest use of lidar at present is to improve the accuracy of automatic driving perception in extreme weather and extreme conditions.

At present, it is still difficult to use lidar in mass production. Bao Junwei believes that when lidar is used in mass production of self driving vehicles, three necessary conditions must be met: to meet the safety requirements of automatic driving vehicles, to meet vehicle regulations and to control the cost of mass production.

In terms of cost, with the maturity of technology and the expansion of scale, at present, the cost of weighing production of most lidar companies has reached about 1000 US dollars. However, Wang Jun, President of Huawei's intelligent car solutions Bu, told reporters during this year's Shanghai auto show that the cost of its lidar could be reduced to $200. But he did not say when the cost could be reduced to that point.

However, it is worth noting that from the perspective of laws and regulations, the current L3 and above automatic driving vehicles can only drive in the automatic driving test area or demonstration area, and the high-level automatic driving has not reached the stage of allowing complex road application in urban areas.

Therefore, at this stage, whether the automobile enterprises need to carry lidar on the mass production vehicles still needs to comprehensively consider the cost, use environment and other aspects.

Investment outlet of 100 billion market

According to the forecast data of investment institutions, by 2025, the global lidar market will reach US $12.6 billion, and China's lidar market will reach US $4.31 billion. By 2025, three out of every 100 private cars in China will be equipped with lidar.

With the development of automatic driving technology, lidar has become a new industry investment outlet. In the second half of last year, start-ups such as velodyne and luminar successively landed in US stocks.

Several lidar companies have also obtained new financing. Among them, the growth of tudaton is inseparable from the support of Weilai. In 2018, tudaton received a round a financing of US $30 million (about RMB 191 million) led by Weilai capital. After that, tudaton and Weilai began the joint development of lidar mass production vehicles. On NiO day in January this year, Weilai official announced that et7 was equipped with tudaton lidar. In addition, in May this year, the official of tudaton announced the financing of round B of US $64 million, and Weilai capital continued to participate in this round of financing.

On May 27, Bao Junwei said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter that tudaton will continue to prepare for a new round of financing.

"The main goal of the early development of companies like ours is to maintain a leading position and enhance their competitive strength before the industry has developed. The main purpose of financing is to invest in R & D and promote mass production, which requires funds. " Bao said.

With more and more automatic driving vehicles equipped with lidar, the market competition in this new field will be more intense.

At present, the main players in the lidar market include three types of enterprises, each with its own advantages. The first category is fareo, Bosch and other traditional auto parts giants; The second category is the ICT enterprises such as Huawei and Dajiang, which have certain hardware development capabilities; The third category is a large number of lidar start-up companies, including velodyne and luminar in the world, and Hesai technology, tudaton and Suteng juchuang, which are well-known in China.

"Although some capital is following the trend, some leading investment institutions are very accurate in judging the track. They think that the time has come. Lidar is like a smartphone 15 years ago, and its potential has just begun to release." Bao Junwei finally said.