The great Lidar-in-Autonomous-Vehicle hype is over. Over 60 Lidar companies were founded between 2016 and today and tried to get into the hype. Hundreds of millions were invested with very little to show for it. There are less than a handful of real automotive deals and I do not count the low-volume luxury car projects that are basically low-risk experiments by the car makers.The great Lidar-in-Autonomous-Vehicle hype is over. Over 60 Lidar companies were founded between 2016 and today and tried to get into the hype. Hundreds of millions were invested with very little to show for it. There are less than a handful of real automotive deals and I do not count the low-volume luxury car projects that are basically low-risk experiments by the car makers.
People who have known me over the years know that I have been saying since 2017 or so: "The non-automotive Lidar market will be significantly larger than the automotive Lidar market for at least the next ten years."
Now that the majority of Lidar manufacturers have realized the same thing, we are being inundated with press releases, news articles, interviews and tradeshow demos of numerous smart city and smart infrastructure projects. The Lidar industry is pivoting.
This is a good thing. However... and this is a big warning I am giving the industry:
If you are going to pivot to non-automotive, do it properly, or don't do it at all.
We, and I am speaking for the non-automotive customers, have no interest in being your plan B. This is not some 80's movie where Eric Stoltz lusts after Lea Thompson and ignores poor Mary Masterson and when he realizes it's not working out, he still gets the girl. Don't tell us your Lidar is perfect for non-automotive. Your Lidar is designed and built based on automotive specs. Only one or two of the Lidar on the market right now are designed with non-automotive customer input (take a look at who I used to work for and you'll know which ones). All it takes for me is a five second inspection of your latest unit and I can tell whether you talked to a single customer. Just the connector location, connector type and mounting hole pattern tells me everything I need to know. I don't even have to power up the unit.
You have to go out and talk to your customers and then you have to listen to them. Fifteen PhD's in a lab are not going to select the right connector. Everything works great on your desk, but now go out in 32-degree rainy weather, on top of a bucket lift with freezing cold fingers and all of a sudden that tiny, shiny connector is not so great anymore. I have seen connectors being snapped off, broken pins inside connectors from too much torque, burned out connectors from moisture ingress, sand getting inside so it won't close any more. And that's just the connector.
Don't even get me started on the required custom Y-cables, connector boxes, USD 200 custom brackets that crack because of temperature changes and the one poor guy who had to lift a 30 pound(!!) Lidar housing and balance it on his shoulder because he needed both hands to tighten the steel strap to the gantry over the highway.
With everything you do, you have to imagine the environment the unit will have to operate in. Just slapping an IP67 rating on your unit is not enough. Every ill-informed design decision you make, translates directly into money lost by the integrators and installers who have to spend more time and money in training their field ops, longer installation time, expensive custom equipment, the inability to cut cables at length on site, handling maintenance calls, replacing bad units and so on.
If you spend your time in investor meetings and in front of your computer all day, you should not be the one making design decisions. Either get out in the real world, talk with real people and see how they operate. Or have someone else do it and listen to them, then still have that person make the decisions.
Why am I saying this and being so direct about it? Because I am tired of seeing an industry shoot itself in the foot and then expect to be handed a gold medal at the Olympic 100m sprint.
We (non-automotive customers) want this to succeed, but we need you (Lidar manufacturers) to do your part.
Talk to your customers.
