Velodyne aims to price new self-driving car sensor below $500
<p style="text-align: center;"><img title="1605496675794538.jpg" alt="8.jpg" src="/ueditor/php/upload/image/20201116/1605496675794538.jpg"/></p><p>Velodyne Lidar Inc said on Friday it would introduce a new lidar unit, a key sensor in self-driving cars, with a target price point of less than $500 and no moving parts.<br/><br/>Velodyne became a public company in September and is one of several companies vying to supply automakers with lidar, a sensor that generates a three-dimensional map of the road ahead. Velodyne was an early entrant into the market, and its units have powered research operations for many automakers.<br/></p><p><br/></p><p>Some of those early research units were bulky, contained many moving parts and cost well above $10,000. For mass production in passenger vehicles, automakers and their major suppliers seek units that are sleek enough to fit into attractive car designs and cost well below $1,000.<br/><br/>The autonomous vehicle technology company said the Velarray H800 will have a target price of less than $500. In an interview with Reuters, Velodyne Chief Executive Anand Gopalan said the company is working with contract manufacturing partner Fabrinet to assemble test devices and that mass production will happen at a Fabrinet factory in Thailand.<br/><br/>Velodyne expects automotive-grade mass manufacturing to be under way by the second half of 2021 and that the devices could show up in vehicles in 2022 or 2023, Gopalan told Reuters.<br/><br/>"We have clear line of sight into being able to hit those costs today," he said of the sub-$500 price point.<br/><br/>The company said the unit will have no moving parts - known as "solid state" in the industry - and will be small enough to fit behind the windshield of a car. It said the sensor can be used for self-driving vehicles or existing driver-assistance features such as emergency braking and lane-keeping assistance.</p><p><br/></p><p>Velodyne is among a trio of lidar technology developers coming to public markets. Silicon Valley firm Aeva Inc aims to go public by merging with blank-check acquisition company InterPrivate Acquisition Corp, and Luminar Technologies Inc is working through a similar transaction with Gores Metropoulos Inc.</p>
16 Nov,2020
