Under the global energy revolution, China, the world's largest carbon market, has sounded the "double carbon" charge, and green demand is continuing to be injected into urban planning, affecting all aspects of travel, transportation and transportation. With the landing of more smart cities and smart transportation projects, the demand for lidar will show a steady growth trend, and we have seen applications based on lidar technology in more and more industries.
China has always been an important growth market for Velodyne Lidar, with its Asia Pacific headquarters located in Beijing, China. We have been serving Chinese customers for more than 10 years and have established close cooperative relations, and continue to invest a lot of products and technical resources in many first-tier cities to support customers. Under the leadership of CEO Dr. Ted Tewksbury, we will continue to vigorously promote the provision of high-quality, high-performance lidar products to the Chinese market, hoping to further enhance Velodyne's influence in the Chinese market." At the same time, in order to better serve local customers and partners, in 2021 we set up a Chinese customer service team, and the engineering team has also expanded exponentially this year. At the same time, we have established bonded warehouses and local warehouses in China to respond to customer needs comprehensively and quickly from the service, technology and product levels to help customers grow their business.
True to the brand vision of "Science for Security", we significantly improve safety, sustainability and efficiency by offering the industry's broadest product portfolio to meet a wide range of applications across multiple industries. With a rich portfolio of high-quality rotary lidar products, Alpha Prime, solid-state lidar products, Velary and Velabit, and market-leading Veella development kits, customers and partners are reliably guaranteed on the road to "automation".
The Automated with Velodyne project aims to promote the development of Velodyne Lidar partners around the world and promote the development of the industry. It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of this year, Velodyne's global partners have exceeded 100, covering many business types of application areas. The Velodyne lidar sensor and software portfolio is making its mark in three key markets: industrial and robotics, smart infrastructure, and the automotive industry, which includes autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). As we look ahead to global market trends and technology developments in 2022 and beyond, we spend some time thinking about the following trends we see from four major market segments:
"Machine substitution" accelerates the construction of smart industry
The global supply chain tensions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic have brought a lot of uncertainty to the market economy, and driven by factors such as the epidemic and the supply chain crisis, the industrial and robotics sectors have become the closest areas to large-scale commercial deployments, driven by the proliferation of intelligent automation in factories, warehouses, ports and other applications. As the world's largest logistics market, China's industrial economy is creating a new pattern, moving rapidly towards intelligence and green. By promoting the application of emerging technologies and intelligent equipment such as lidar, it is the trend of the times to improve the automation and intelligence of logistics links such as warehousing, transportation, distribution and distribution.
In factories or logistics centers, autonomous tractors with Velodyne lidar automate material handling, increase efficiency and ensure safety. In warehouses, many industrial robots that have adopted lidar are moving goods with greater precision, efficiency and safety, helping to maintain continuity of operations. In ports, marine cranes, empowered by lidar, can guide and help ships navigate, dock and unload safely, and there are currently more than 5,000 lidar-enabled AGVs or autonomous navigation vehicles in the port, helping them stay open 24 hours a day. Looking at dangerous and remote mining areas, drones using lidar can fly freely and provide navigation in highly complex industrial environments without human manipulation.
In the era of the epidemic, lidar has provided more impetus for the "last mile" of automated transportation. For example, automated and remotely controlled driverless buses powered by lidar can transport health workers and first responders through infected areas, as well as medical supplies, equipment and food. Contactless distribution ensures medical safety and protects those most vulnerable to infection.
Smart infrastructure and smart city construction continue to develop in depth
Smart infrastructure and smart cities have become one of the most exciting emerging lidar markets. As China accelerates the construction of a benchmark city for the digital economy, the application and impact of lidar are gradually deepening. As a catalyst for smart city application construction, lidar can improve and optimize public services, helping more people improve road safety and quality of life.
Velodyne Smart Infrastructure Solutions (IIS) can create real-time 3D maps of roads and intersections, providing precise traffic monitoring and analysis that is not possible with other types of sensors such as cameras or radar. It reliably collects data in any light or weather condition, supporting year-round operation. It can predict, diagnose and solve road safety challenges, improve road safety, reduce congestion and increase traffic efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving energy efficiency, and help urban planning create smarter and safer transportation systems. In addition, lidar eliminates the need to collect facial recognition data, which eliminates privacy concerns and maintains public trust with camera-based systems. The solution is currently deployed on three continents: Asia, North America and Europe.
The wave of automated driving is sweeping in
Self-driving cars are no longer a future vision, and major automakers are already developing self-driving cars and are committed to commercialization. In the field of self-driving cars, lidar is undoubtedly a key technology. With the aid of lidar technology, vehicles contribute to climate sustainability by reducing fuel consumption while improving road safety.
Automated shuttle buses such as Navya Beep and May Mobility, as well as leading robo-taxi innovators such as Motional, are integrating Velodyne's lidar into their systems to deliver the highest levels of performance and safety. Emerging electric vehicle companies such as Faraday Future are opting for Velodyne lidar to provide drivers with a high level of safety, convenience and driving comfort. For electric vehicles, lidar can help them enhance automation, improve safety and energy efficiency, and maximize the driving distance and charging interval of electric vehicles.
Speaking of efficiency, lidar self-driving trucks like Ford Otosan can save fuel and operate around the clock, helping to alleviate supply chain bottlenecks. As well as in the field of racing, we've even seen Velodyne-based application solutions combined with the NVIDIA driving platform to power ROBORATE driverless cars.
ADAS vehicle mass deployment is still "on the road"
The reliability and cost of lidar has always been a matter of great concern in the industry, and cost has always been a major concern in the design and manufacture of products. Velodyne Lidar has been combining patented technology, partners and production strategy layout advantages, continuously promoting the cost reduction of lidar, bringing cost-effective lidar to the domestic automated automobile market, and helping future mobility.
In the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) space, full deployment at the L2+/L3 level is slower than expected, but we still believe that the high level of safety requirements required by cars can only be achieved through lidar. Velodyne's Veloray H800 solid-state lidar is being evaluated by several automotive customers and, combined with our Veella software, can significantly improve safety.
ADAS cars are still a few years away from mass production, but Velodyne is actively involved in all major automotive segments, including New Electric Vehicles, Automated Trucking, and Robotaxi, where we are ready to compete with our new solid-state lidar product line.
In other segments, from wire monitoring solutions or vegetation management systems to oil/gas, mining, chemicals, energy, and construction plants, we see interesting uses and endless opportunities for lidar in many industrial applications. In 2021, 15,000 Velodyne lidar sensors will be ordered, manufactured, and delivered.
I firmly believe that the application scope of lidar will expand rapidly in the next few years, and with our strong mass production capabilities, we are confident that Velodyne Lidar will lead the first wave of large-scale commercialization of global lidar solutions." At the same time, we remain true to our core mission and leverage our technological strengths to achieve a safer, more sustainable and more efficient world.