Weilai Capital Automotive Lidar Project Signed A Contract And Landed in Wuxi

Currently, lidar is considered to be one of the necessary conditions for realizing high-level autonomous driving. Aiming at the growth space of lidar in the process of promoting the intelligentization of automobiles, NIO's layout actions are also earlier.

 

At present, in the field of passenger vehicles, Tudatong and Weilai have been deeply bound together, and all models of Weilai NT2.0 platform are equipped with Tudatong Falcon lidar as standard. According to the introduction, Tudatong’s Falcon series products were jointly developed by Weilai and Tudatong, among which Weilai led the design of the lidar motherboard.

 

In March 2022, the delivery of the NIO ET7 equipped with this type of lidar will make it the world's first mass-produced vehicle that uses lidar to achieve ACC and LCC.

 

A few days ago, Bao Junwei, CEO and co-founder of Tudatong, said in an interview at the China Electric Vehicle Hundreds Forum that the company "currently has two production lines in Ningbo and Suzhou, and this year's goal is to fully guarantee the supply of NIO."

 

At present, in addition to Weilai, a major customer, Tudatong is also actively expanding other customers at home and abroad. According to Bao Junwei, "At present, the top ten OEMs in the world basically have a relatively clear plan for LiDAR to be used in vehicles, and we will actively develop these customers." He also emphasized that LiDAR is an essential product for L3 autonomous driving , and it is also a very important sensor in L2 intelligent driving.

 

With the improvement of performance and the improvement of the industrial chain, the high cost of tens of thousands of dollars is also falling sharply, which in turn is conducive to stimulating the large-scale mass production of lidar.

 

CITIC Securities Research Report pointed out that "if lidar wants to be used on a large scale (the penetration rate exceeds 50%), the value of the bicycle may need to be controlled within 500 US dollars, and it needs to provide additional experience beyond the pure visual intelligent driving system. Currently, passenger The average value of a single car with LiDAR is in the range of 1,000-1,500 US dollars."

 

Tudatong also stated recently that the current cost of lidar is basically below 1,000 US dollars per piece. It is expected that the cost of long-range lidar in the industry will be less than 5,000 yuan per piece in the future, and the cost of medium and short distances will be even lower. Flash lateral radar may only cost a few hundred dollars.

 

Based on the drive of high-level autonomous driving and the expansion of main application scenarios, the cost will gradually decrease, and the lidar market will usher in rapid growth. Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute predicts that in 2023, the delivery of standard lidar for domestic passenger cars may hit the scale of 400,000-500,000 units.