Mercedes-Benz Expands Lidar Production Deal With Luminar

Simply over a 12 months after initially asserting a partnership with lidar producer Luminar, Mercedes-Benz has introduced a significant enlargement of that relationship which incorporates a number of manufacturing packages. The brand new deal was introduced as a part of a broader Mercedes-Benz Working System technique replace occasion streamed from the automaker’s North American R&D middle in Sunnyvale, California.

Particular particulars stay scant for now, however extra data is predicted to be introduced throughout a Luminar investor day at its Orlando, Florida, headquarters subsequent week. Luminar will reveal extra details about its upcoming product roadmap at the moment. Presently, Luminar affords two merchandise, its unique Hydra lidar that’s meant only for growth packages and the a lot lower-profile Iris, which is now in manufacturing.

The Mercedes-Benz program will make the most of a next-generation model of the Iris sensor, which is predicted to have a sleeker profile that ought to lead to a much less outstanding hump on the high of the windshield. Luminar will nearly actually be centered on value discount with the next-generation sensor because it seeks to achieve profitability whereas scaling volumes. The present Iris sensor is estimated to value about $1,000 every. Innoviz, which received a manufacturing contract price as much as $4 billion from Volkswagen group in 2022 is focusing on a worth level of $500 or much less for its next-generation InnovizTwo sensor, so Luminar is probably going aiming for the same worth level.

The primary sequence manufacturing software for the present Iris sensor is the SAIC Feifan R7 sedan that went into manufacturing in October 2022. Later in 2023, the identical sensor might be commonplace gear for the brand new Volvo EX90 and likewise accessible on the Polestar 3.

The present manufacturing packages are nonetheless comparatively low in quantity. Nonetheless, the Volvo and Polestar might develop considerably if the manufacturers decide to incorporate commonplace lidar on upcoming electrical fashions that share the identical structure. The Mercedes-Benz program is claimed to be a multi-billion greenback throughout a broad vary of car strains. Mercedes-Benz plans to make the most of the Luminar sensors throughout a “broad vary of next-generation manufacturing car strains,” though there isn’t any details about which automobiles right now. Mercedes-Benz has had greater than 2 million gross sales yearly for the previous a number of years, so this deal might simply quantity to over 1 million items yearly.

When Mercedes-Benz and Luminar introduced their preliminary partnership in January 2022, that concerned a manufacturing dedication for a single program. In accordance with Luminar CEO Austin Russell, the brand new deal expands the potential volumes “by greater than 10X.”

Mercedes-Benz plans to make the most of the Luminar sensors as a part of the assisted and automatic driving system that it’ll deploy within the coming years based mostly on the Nvidia Drive Hyperion platform. When the Mercedes-Benz Nvidia partnership was first introduced in 2020, the primary program was focused at a 2024 launch, though given what has occurred since then, some delay is possible. The brand new announcement solely talks a few mid-decade launch which could possibly be 2025 or later.

In an effort to help this enlargement, Luminar might be rising its manufacturing capability considerably. Luminar sources circuit boards and different main elements from quite a lot of contract manufacturing companions and does closing meeting at its facility in Orlando, Florida, the place it has capability for about 250,000 items yearly. To help the Mercedes-Benz program and different potential clients, it plans so as to add a brand new manufacturing facility someplace in Asia together with an as-yet-unnamed companion.

Whereas Mercedes-Benz is a premium car producer, this deal, together with the sooner Volkswagen-Innoviz deal, the GM-Cepton deal for Extremely Cruise and quite a few different upcoming packages, point out that lidar adoption will develop considerably over the rest of this decade. That may doubtless drive prices down considerably and result in additional adoption on extra mainstream fashions.