China's lidar has rolled up to a new height, another weapon to block the lifeblood of new energy?

From January 9 to 12, 2024, at CES 2024, the world's largest consumer electronics show, Hesai Technology, Tudatong and Suteng Juchuang, which was recently listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, all appeared at the top three Chinese lidar companies, actively "flexing their muscles".

Hesai's newly released AT series is a 512-line ultra-high-definition ultra-long-range LiDAR for production vehicles equipped with intelligent driving systems, which can achieve 300 meters of standard distance measurement (@10% reflectivity) and a maximum range measurement capability of 400 meters.

After landing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Suteng Juchuang became the world's largest listed lidar company by market capitalization, and won the first place in the list of lidar suppliers for the first time. At CES4 2024, Suteng Juchuang released a new ultra-long-range lidar product for L3+ autonomous driving, M3.

M3 is the first ultra-long-range lidar on the M platform, and the world's first ultra-long-range lidar that uses a 940nm laser transceiver scheme to achieve 300m@10% reflectance ranging capability, which is better than the traditional 1550nm lidar, and the cost is 40%-50%, the size is more than 50%, and the power consumption is more than 30% lower.

From the perspective of product performance, in China, the upward trend of leading lidar companies represented by Hesai and Suteng Juchuang has become more and more obvious.

In this upward trend, on January 31, the US Department of Defense website announced that the US Department of Defense updated the list of "Chinese military companies" operating directly or indirectly in the United States.

The inclusion of Hesai Technology this time triggered a response from Hesai Technology, which said that all products are for civilian use only and have no business dealings with the military of any country, so the incident has no material impact on Hesai's business.

U.S. experts recently said that the U.S. is not rushing to impose new export controls on lidar technology, citing that U.S. companies may not have a decisive control point in the lidar field and that such restrictions could hurt U.S. export revenues.

Lidar is equivalent to the "eyes" of a smart car, which emits laser beams to "see" the surrounding objects. The mainland not only took advantage of the advantages of the industry to launch a countermeasure, but also boosted the domestic new energy vehicles to win the world, from the current point of view, Chinese companies gnawed the hard bones of lidar, has another weapon of new energy lifeline.

How do Chinese companies "gnaw" the hard bones of lidar?

Although the volume of lidar is small, the technical aspect is a "hard bone".

Laser emitters and detectors need to meet very precise standards to accurately emit and receive thousands of rays in a short period of time. How difficult this technology is, you can get a glimpse of how difficult it is from the fall of overseas lidar head companies one after another.

Germany's Ibeo, known as the originator of lidar, has previously declared bankruptcy, and Bosch, the world's largest automotive supply chain manufacturer, also abandoned its self-developed lidar in July last year......

But according to patent analysis firm Patent Result, Chinese companies filed a total of 25,957 lidar patent applications, nearly 8,000 more than the second-place United States.

According to official statistics, Chinese suppliers account for half of the world's lidar fixed-point numbers, far exceeding the United States, Germany and Japan. In 2023, the annual delivery volume of Chinese enterprise Suteng Juchuang LiDAR will be about 256,000 units, a record high in the world. Even Toyota, the leading Japanese car, has designated the model projects in some markets to Suteng Juchuang.

Domestic lidar "rolled" to a new height

The United States and Western countries have repeatedly pursued and intercepted the mainland in the field of semiconductors, but in the field of new energy vehicles, in the face of the suppression of the United States and the West, the mainland has included lidar technology in the list of prohibited and restricted exports last year, and has taken the lifeblood of the development of new energy vehicles into its own hands.

On December 21, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology revised and released the "Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted by China for Export", and in the new version of the catalogue, the "export restriction part" adjusted the "control points" of the lidar system. To put it simply, after the adjustment, the export of civilian vehicle lidar will not be restricted.

In the era of new energy vehicles, from the era of electrification with three electric vehicles as the core to the era of intelligence with autonomous driving as the development direction, the lidar system is very important to the development of autonomous driving technology.

At this stage, in the field of automatic identification, there are two main technical schools of new energy vehicles: lidar recognition and visual algorithm recognition. In contrast, LiDAR recognition is more effective than visual algorithms. Because for autonomous driving, the most critical part is its perception ability, lidar uses a lattice laser, which can not only obtain the depth of spatial information, but also do not need external light assistance. Therefore, it is most appropriate to use this system in the manufacture of new energy vehicles.

This is also the reason why car companies are now developing from "pure visual computing" to "lidar" solutions.

With the continuous efforts of domestic enterprises, China's lidar technology is becoming the main force in the global market. In China, Hesai Technology and Suteng Juchuang are becoming leading companies in the global lidar industry. Both ranked first and third respectively in the global ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) segment in terms of shipments.

The difference between Hesai and Suteng Juchuang lies in the difference in business structure. Suteng Juchuang's main business is not only limited to ADAS lidar, but also the M platform that designs ADAS lidar products M1 and M2, as well as the R platform that designs higher-end autonomous driving lidar. Hesai Technology, on the other hand, is fully focused on the ADAS lidar track, and its revenue basically comes from ADAS lidar, and the sales volume of its ace product AT128 has reached 80%.

In China, Suteng Juchuang has achieved a new breakthrough in ultra-high resolution and ultra-long detection distance, and is expected to drop the price to 1,000 yuan. In October this year, the domestic lidar loading volume was about 68,000 (only the standard configuration is counted), compared with only 17,000 in the same period last year, and from January to October, the total domestic lidar loading volume was 387,000, an increase of 511% compared with the same period last year. It can be said that lidar has rolled up to a new height in China.

With the rapid development of lidar technology, according to the forecast data of the Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute, more than 5 million lidars will be installed in domestic passenger cars in 2025, and it will continue to expand in the future.

Lidar is another powerful weapon with the lifeblood of new energy

Domestic lidar is not suspended in the "sky pavilion" at the technical level, but has achieved a leading position in technology industrialization.

Different from the overseas pricing of 10,000 yuan, the domestic automotive-grade lidar has reached 1,000 US dollars and is working towards the 100 yuan mark. When one day we find that lidar products begin to "rot on the street" and become the standard configuration of automobiles instead of high configuration, lidar will truly benefit thousands of households.

China has taken the lead in power batteries, and Japanese companies rely heavily on importing Chinese raw materials and parts for the production of new energy vehicles.

Japan, South Korea and Germany, although they also build new energy vehicles, do not have the processor technology of the intelligent cockpit and the AI chip technology of autonomous driving.

In the era of new energy vehicles, China's opponent is only the United States.

The United States has intelligent cockpit processor technology and AI chip technology for autonomous driving, at present, in addition to China, the United States has large-scale practical lidar technology, but the United States lacks power battery technology, and in the field of lidar technology, China's cost and price advantages are highlighted.

As CSIS points out, unlike other similar technologies, it is difficult for the U.S. to claim critical control points along the lidar supply chain, as some Chinese products are "superior" in terms of quality and price.

The millimeter-wave radar, ultrasonic radar, lidar and camera used in intelligent driving can all be produced independently and controllably in China. In this regard, China does not have to worry about being stuck by the United States and the West.

With the progress of lidar technology, domestic new energy vehicles will have clearer and more reliable "eyes". From the perspective of BYD's strategy, it is both lidar and binocular vision sensor routes. DJI's automotive intelligent driving solution has features such as binocular vision, cost performance, and its own lidar and production line.

Judging from the current progress, China's leading position in lidar technology is becoming more and more obvious, which may be another weapon to block the lifeblood of new energy, drive the competitive advantage of China's new energy vehicle companies, and use it to counter sanctions.

It's just that from the current point of view, it is not the time to be optimistic, after all, the head players on the lidar track, Hesai Technology and Suteng Juchuang, are not profitable, and the latter's losses are even more serious. The former's net loss increased from 107 million in 2020 to 300 million in 2022, and the net loss in the first half of 2023 was 193 million. The net loss in the first half of 2023 increased by 24% year-on-year to 619 million yuan. Behind the loss is the rigidity of high expenditure on R&D expenses.

Therefore, judging from the current situation, to maintain the leading edge, a larger market is needed to support the profitability of the top players and form a positive cycle of R&D, which requires manufacturers to consider and try to enter more overseas markets with finished cars equipped with lidar.

Among the countries in the world, China is the only one that can build smart cars end-to-end, and autonomous driving technology, lidar, and batteries are all in the hands of Chinese car companies. As lidar products begin to "rotten streets", the cost continues to fall, and it has become the standard configuration of automobiles instead of high configuration, and it is necessary to have huge overseas market sales to support the positive cycle of R&D growth of domestic enterprises, which is the direction that the head lidar companies need to promote as soon as possible. Of course, judging from the trend, it is only a matter of time before the overseas market expands, and we will wait and see.

Author: Wang Xinxi, Senior Reviewer of TMT This article is not reproduced without permission