Finding
Automotive lidar is a Chinese industry: Hesai, RoboSense, Seyond and Huawei ship most units, at prices Western makers have not matched
Hesai shipped 1.62 million lidars in 2025 and RoboSense about 912,000, driven by Chinese automakers fitting lidar as standard on cars from Xiaomi, Li Auto, Leapmotor and BYD's top God's Eye tier. Hesai's ATX sells for about $200. In the West, Luminar filed for Chapter 11 in December 2025 after losing Volvo volume, and the remaining suppliers - Valeo, Innoviz, Ouster and Aeva - ship far smaller volumes.
Lidar times reflected laser pulses to measure 3D geometry directly, independent of lighting, which is why every driverless robotaxi fleet carries it and why Level 3 systems such as Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot use it for redundancy. Tesla remains the main holdout, running a vision-only stack. XPeng also dropped lidar from new models in 2024, while Huawei, Li Auto, NIO and Xiaomi kept it.
The Chinese cost lead comes from vertical integration: Hesai designs its own ASICs, emitter and receiver chips and builds in its own Shanghai factory, and RoboSense shifted to in-house SPAD-SoC receivers. The component layer still draws on Western and Japanese parts: 905 nm lasers and VCSELs from ams OSRAM and Lumentum (and Vertilite in China), SPAD and SiPM detectors from Sony and onsemi, and 1550 nm fiber lasers for long-range units. Lidar makers are also in the US Defense Department's 1260H list dispute: Hesai was listed in 2024 and contests it.
Robotics is the second market: lawn mowers, delivery robots and humanoids buy short-range lidar by the million. See LiDAR Systems for types and the technical view.
Makers
Lidar makers
| Maker | Base | Design | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hesai | China | Semi-solid-state (ATX, AT512), spinning (robotaxi) | No. 1 by volume; Nvidia Hyperion 10 partner |
| RoboSense | China | MEMS and digital SPAD (EM, MX series) | No. 2; large robotics volume |
| Huawei | China | Semi-solid-state, 192-line | Fitted to HIMA brands (AITO, Luxeed, Stelato) |
| Seyond | China and US | 1550 nm (Falcon), 905 nm | NIO supplier; ex-Innovusion |
| Valeo | France | Scala 3 scanning | Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis Level 3 |
| Innoviz | Israel | MEMS (InnovizTwo) | BMW, Volkswagen Group |
| Ouster | US | Digital flash and spinning | Industrial and robotics focus; merged with Velodyne in 2023 |
| Aeva | US | FMCW 4D (per-point velocity) | Daimler Truck program |
| Luminar | US | 1550 nm (Iris, Halo) | Chapter 11 filing, December 2025 |
Components
What goes into a lidar
| Component | Function | Suppliers |
|---|---|---|
| Laser emitter | 905 nm edge-emitters or VCSEL arrays; 1550 nm fiber lasers | ams OSRAM, Lumentum, Vertilite, Hesai in-house |
| Detector | SPAD, SiPM or APD arrays | Sony, onsemi, Hamamatsu, RoboSense in-house |
| Scanner | MEMS mirror, polygon or rotating head | In-house at most lidar makers |
| Processing ASIC or FPGA | Timing and point-cloud generation | Hesai and RoboSense in-house; AMD FPGAs on low volume |
| Cleaning and heating | Keeps window clear | Tier-1 sensor-cleaning suppliers |
Directory
Lidar vendor directory
Active companies first, then merged, acquired, exited and bankrupt ones; each company appears once per product line.
| Company | Products | HQ | Plants | Technology | Customers | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aeva | Aeries II and Atlas 4D lidar | US | Outsourced | 1550 nm FMCW with per-point velocity | Daimler Truck | active |
| Hesai | ATX, AT128 and AT512 (cars); OT128 and Pandar (robotaxis); FT120 (flash) | China | China | 905 nm, semi-solid-state and spinning; in-house ASICs | Li Auto, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, BYD, Great Wall; Baidu Apollo Go, Pony.ai, WeRide | active: Largest automotive lidar maker by volume; NVIDIA Hyperion partner |
| Huawei | 192-line semi-solid-state lidar | China | China | 905 nm, semi-solid-state | AITO, Luxeed, Stelato, Maextro, Avatr | active |
| Innoviz | InnovizOne and InnovizTwo | Israel | Outsourced (contract manufacturing) | 905 nm MEMS | BMW (via Magna), Volkswagen Group (ID. Buzz AD via Mobileye) | active |
| MicroVision | MOVIA lidar; bought Ibeo assets (2023) and Luminar's lidar business (2026) | US | Germany (Hamburg) | 905 nm flash and MEMS | Industrial and automotive programs | active |
| Ouster | OS spinning and digital flash lidar; merged with Velodyne in 2023 | US | Outsourced (Thailand) | 865 nm digital lidar | Industrial, robotics and smart-infrastructure customers | active |
| RoboSense | MX, M-series and EM digital lidar; robotics lidar | China | China | 905 nm, MEMS and digital SPAD | BYD, Zeekr, XPeng, GAC Aion, SAIC | active: Second largest by volume; large robotics business |
| Seyond | Falcon and Robin lidar; formerly Innovusion | China | China, US | 1550 nm (Falcon) and 905 nm (Robin) | NIO | active |
| Valeo | Scala 2 and Scala 3 scanning lidar | France | Germany, France | 905 nm scanning | Mercedes-Benz (Drive Pilot), Honda (Legend), Stellantis | active: First automotive-grade lidar in series production (Audi A8, 2017) |
| Waymo | In-house lidar suite on the Waymo Driver | US | US | Long- and short-range lidar | Waymo | active |
| Cepton (Koito) | Vista and Nova lidar | US | - | 905 nm MMT | Koito lamp-integrated lidar | acquired: Acquired by Koito, January 2025 |
| Mobileye | FMCW lidar development | Israel | - | FMCW | - | exited: Stopped internal lidar development, 2024 |
| Luminar | Iris and Halo lidar | US | - | 1550 nm | Volvo (EX90), Mercedes-Benz | bankrupt: Chapter 11, December 2025; lidar business sold to MicroVision and semiconductor unit to Quantum Computing Inc., January 2026 |
Sources
Sources and scope
- Scope
- Vehicle LiDAR Sensors
- Sources
- Hesai, RoboSense, Seyond annual reports (2025); Luminar court filings; supplier disclosures
- Updated
- October 2026