In China, 2022 is the first year that the lidar industry has become a large-scale car, the share of Chinese manufacturers in the global market has increased rapidly, and the domestic lidar industry has broad development prospects, and there is still a huge market space.
"Fools use lidar", a few years ago, Musk's "famous saying" that advocates pure vision can still find many fans. In the field of high-end and intelligent manufacturing, with the rapid development of the domestic lidar market in recent years, the so-called "eye of the machine" lidar rides the "east wind" of China's rapid improvement of economic quality and efficiency, and the market penetration rate has shown an "exponential" increase, becoming a powerful counterattack to pure vision. According to the survey data of the well-known consulting organization Zhiyan Consulting, the market size of the domestic lidar industry will reach 2.388 billion yuan in 2021, and the compound growth rate of the industry scale since 2017 is 23.70%. As the most important application scenario and field in the lidar market, the rapid expansion of the high-end passenger vehicle market has also laid the foundation for the large-scale application of the lidar industry in the domestic market. In the second half of this year, the first wave of mass production and delivery of smart cars in the Chinese market climaxed. According to monitoring data from the Advanced Engineering Intelligent Automobile Research Institute, from January to September this year, the number of front-mounted lidar has reached 57,000, and it is expected to reach 120,000 throughout the year, an increase of more than 10 times. Driven by downstream demand areas such as unmanned driving, robotics, and smart cities, it is expected that the mainland lidar market is expected to grow to 26.069 billion yuan by 2028. According to AVIC Securities research and analysis, the global market for automotive lidar will be about 4.4 billion yuan in 2022 and reach 63.3 billion yuan by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 70%.
1. From "dual circulation" to expanding domestic demand: bottoming out and following the trend
Whether it is the chip industry that is "stuck in the neck" of the West, or the new energy vehicle and intelligent automobile industry where China "opens up another way" to take its own characteristic energy path, "domestic demand" has always been the core focus of China's promotion of its own macroeconomic structural adjustment and breaking its own development dilemma. These can be seen from a series of industrial policies formulated and continuously launched by the state - such as the relevant plans on "digital industry development" issued by the Party Central Committee and the State Council, involving the roadmap for the development of some industries such as intelligent manufacturing, China's new energy strategy, and information industry; A series of overall layouts of relevant national ministries and commissions on "smart city, intelligent transportation (unmanned vehicles, robots)". As an important branch of the development of the national economy and industrial economy, the rapid growth of the new energy industry and the lidar industry is inseparable from the influence of the national macro-political and economic environment.
In order to restore the domestic economy as soon as possible, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council recently issued the Outline of the Strategic Plan for Expanding Domestic Demand (2022-2035). The Central Economic Work Conference held a few days ago took "focusing on expanding domestic demand" as the primary task of economic work in 2023, including "supporting housing improvement and new energy vehicles", "organically combining the implementation of the strategy of expanding domestic demand with deepening supply-side structural reform", "supporting the expansion of domestic demand in various ways and channels"... The expansion of domestic demand will mainly focus on the "consumption" sector, which is also the internal logic of the country's continuous promotion of domestic economic transformation and structural adjustment to the consumption side in recent years. From the development context of the world's major economies in recent years, from the development logic and outlook of China's economy in 2021, 2022 to 2023, they are constantly verifying the truth that those who can live well are not necessarily the most powerful, nor necessarily the smartest, but they must be the fastest to adapt to the environment.
After three years of "bottoming out" after the new crown epidemic, following the trend of the country's macroeconomic layout, coupled with appropriate industrial policies, new energy, intelligent driving, lidar and other industries will usher in a period of explosive growth in 2023, that is, the "beginning" year when "expanding domestic demand" is the primary task and stepping out of the shadow of the new crown epidemic.
2. 100 billion industrial chain: an industrial-level "track" with broad application scenarios
The world's first laser was born in 1960; 2000-2015 Commercialization and initial stage of automotive applications. 2016-2019 Driverless applications are booming: domestic lidar manufacturers have entered the market, and the technical level has caught up with foreign manufacturers. Since 2019, technology optimization has led the IPO boom, while giant companies such as Huawei and DJI have cross-border competition in the lidar market.
From commercialization to the formation of a market scale of hundreds of billions, the application principle of lidar determines its own broad market application space. In terms of working principle, lidar obtains target distance, azimuth, speed, height, attitude, and even shape by transmitting laser beam detection signals to the target, so as to detect, track, and identify the target.
From the entire industrial chain of lidar, the upstream is all kinds of basic components, the midstream is the manufacture of lidar, and the downstream is mainly the application of lidar. LiDAR is a key sensor for autonomous vehicles, and with the gradual mass production of autonomous vehicles, the market size of lidar will also maintain rapid growth in the next 5 years.
According to CIC's forecast, the size of the mainland autonomous driving market will be close to 400 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound growth rate of nearly 107% from 2020 to 2025. According to Sullivan's forecast, the lidar market is expected to reach a global market size of $13.54 billion by 2025. According to CICC, the global front-mounted automotive lidar market is expected to reach 106.6 billion yuan in 2025. The automotive lidar can only be regarded as a subdivision of the downstream application fields of its industrial chain.
With the gradual popularization of artificial intelligence and 5G technology, its downstream applications such as unmanned driving, advanced assisted driving, service robots and Internet of Vehicles have broad development prospects. For example, service robots can use lidar to achieve stable, reliable and high-performance positioning and navigation, and in recent years, mainland service robots have huge market potential and development space, and the market scale and overall proportion will continue to grow. It is estimated that the market size of service robots is expected to exceed 60 billion yuan in 2023.
3. Low cost, mass production: the pre-logic of volume growth
The best technology also needs positive feedback from the market. The rapid expansion of the lidar industry depends on the downstream market capacity of the industrial chain, that is, the capacity of its core application scenarios. Lidar is considered by most automakers and Tier1 to be an indispensable sensor for autonomous driving at level 3 and above, which can significantly improve the reliability of autonomous driving systems. The field of intelligent driving (autonomous driving) has become a major driver of industrial growth. According to the consulting report of the French company Yole, China's lidar supply market share accounts for 50% of the global level.
In recent years, domestic car manufacturers have gradually put into use on high-end models, "lidar" has also become a major "gimmick" for major manufacturers to "sell" to consumers, although some end consumers may still be a little unfamiliar with "lidar", but it is precisely from a detail that reflects that the penetration rate of domestic "lidar" is still in a period of rapid growth. 2022 is the first year known as the large-scale production of lidar. In China, the large-scale commercial use of intelligent vehicle lidar can be said to be a "barometer" for the vigorous development of the lidar industry. In a "arms race" in which domestic car companies use lidar as an important gimmick business strategy, the spring of the domestic lidar industry has begun.
At present, models equipped with LiDAR such as Xpeng P5 and Extreme Fox Alpha S New HI Edition have been officially delivered, and models equipped with LiDAR such as WM M7, Zhiji L7, Xpeng G9, Nezha S, and Avita 11 have also been launched and delivered this year. 2022 is the year of mass production of lidar applied to models. High-end intelligent driving will welcome the first year of mass production in 2023. Intelligent driving has been upgraded from L2+ to L3 and L4, and high-end intelligent driving relies more on the support of high-performance hardware. According to data from the Advanced Engineering Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute, in 2021, the number of lidar equipped with standard passenger cars in the domestic market will be less than 8,000.
From January to September 2022, the number of front-mounted lidar has reached 57,000, and it is expected to reach 120,000 throughout the year, an increase of more than 10 times. According to the latest report by Fuji Chimera Research, by 2030, there will be 61.76 million L2 autonomous vehicles, 5.8 million L3 and 4.33 million L4-5 autonomous vehicles. The lidar industry has a foundation for mass production, and as the domestic autonomous driving market continues to expand, under the recognition that "high-level automatic driving is inseparable from lidar", lidar will not only usher in volume growth in 2023. In the next decade, the market capacity of this industrial chain will continue to expand.
4. New impact of the track: the new ecological momentum of the 512 line of the vehicle regulation level
A recent news is quite eye-catching: Beixing released a new generation of 512-line vehicle-grade lidar on December 22, empowering the safe driving of intelligent cars. According to Li Yuan, CEO of Beixing, at the press conference, the 512-line vehicle-grade lidar - AD2 marks that China's automotive lidar field has officially entered the industry-leading "512 era", and AD2 will be for the three major groups of new forces in car manufacturing, traditional car manufacturers, and driverless solution providers, and will achieve mass production and delivery in 2023. At this press conference, the CEO of Beixing introduced that AD2 has obtained a number of models with a total of 180,000 units, and has reached mass production cooperation with Jabil, the world's top electronic manufacturing service provider. At the same time, Li Yuan also announced the establishment of the 512 Ecological Alliance in Beixing, which is committed to empowering car companies to achieve curve overtaking in the era of intelligent driving.
According to public information, up to now, the number of LiDAR related patents in Beixing has ranked among the top in the world, of which 413 patent applications have been published and 200 patents have been authorized. Moreover, Beixing has won national honors such as "National Intellectual Property Advantage Enterprise" and National Specialized and Special New "Little Giant" Enterprise. In the context of increased industry competition, the lidar industry is ushering in a new round of explosive growth. To borrow the view of an authoritative expert in the industry: the domestic lidar industry structure will be constantly updated due to the impact of new technologies. The author believes that in this automotive-grade lidar competition track, the 512 line of Beixing will be recorded in the atlas of China's intelligent vehicle hardware development as a very important landmark event.
5. Conclusion
The development of the lidar industry requires the capacity of the downstream market of the industrial chain, that is, its core application scenarios.
With the acceleration of China's economic transformation, the so-called "eye of the machine" lidar is widely used in the field of intelligent manufacturing, especially with the rapid rise of China's intelligent car companies in recent years, and its market penetration rate continues to increase.
In China, 2022 is the first year that the lidar industry has become a large-scale car, the share of Chinese manufacturers in the global market has increased rapidly, and the domestic lidar industry has broad development prospects, and there is still a huge market space.
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