The inventor and industry leader in Lidar, Velodyne, has to leave hair in China.
Velodyne invented the lidar sensor and has been the undisputed leader in this segment so far. But there are more and more startups taking on the topic. That’s what the Californian company did Aeva Recently, a Lidarsensor in prospect, the smaller and cheaper and has more range.
Velodyne lidar sensors
Velodyne also has his technique refinedNevertheless, the company suffered a setback in China. There one plans, more than 20 persons from the workforce in Peking to dismiss. Furthermore, you want to set the direct sale there. For this purpose, one wants to found an agency to distribute the products in China.
The reason for this, according to the media assessment, are the high prices of Velodyne lidar sensors. In fact, lidar is the cost driver of autonomous driving. Especially the company RoboSense seems to make up ground there, which is likely to be due to the price.
In China, Velodyne is mainly of Baidu and ford who together invested $ 150 million. But Baidu recently got his lidar sensors from Hesai. Velodyne sues the two Chinese startups RoboSense and Hesai and accuses them of plagiarism.
According to other voices, the business with autonomous driving is losing its momentum. In fact, Baidu recently decided to join his company restructureto the developmental delay to meet.
About David Fluhr
I’ve been writing about Autonomous & Connected Driving since 2011 and also talk about it on other sites like the Smart Mobility Hub. I studied social sciences at the HU Berlin and since 2012 I am a freelance journalist. Contact: mail@autonomes-fahren.de