"Technavio forecasts the worldwide automotive LiDAR sensors market will see a compound annual growth rate of more than 34% up to 2020. The market research firm estimates the automotive LiDAR market was worth $61.61 million in 2015, with most of the spending in the Europe/Middle East/Africa region and in the Americas.
LiDAR manufacturers are working on reducing the cost of the system by employing efficient processing techniques, and in certain cases positioning products as per customer segments. “For instance, the price of the Velodyne LiDAR unit that is used on Google’s self-driving car is a 64-beam Velodyne HDL- 64E priced at $80,000,” [Technavio analyst Siddharth] Jaiswal said. “Velodyne also offers 32-beam and 16-beam LiDAR units at $40,000 and $8,000 respectively, which can be used for economical projects. We expect LiDAR technology to follow a similar path of ‘radar’ in the automotive industry, where cost played a crucial role in market adoption. Hence cost is a key focus area for the players.”
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| LiDAR price trend to 2020, according to Technavio |
Yole Developpement analyst Pierre "Cambou noted there are different approaches to autonomous driving, and LiDAR isn’t essential to all of them. “LiDAR is a fundamental piece of equipment for autonomous vehicles, which I would rather call robotic vehicles. There will be many levels of autonomy. LiDAR might be necessary for city autonomous emergency braking, probably in conjunction with radars and cameras. This multimodality approach is well-defined now. Nobody really questions it anymore.”
And LiDAR’s market will increase as prices drop, from about $300 million today to about $600 million over the next five years. “Today there are three entry points in automotive: $3,000, $300, and $30,” he said. “Cameras are currently at the $30 price point and LiDAR is at $3,000. The goal for the LiDAR players is to lower the cost and reach the $300 target without sacrificing too much of the performance. We will see such LiDARs entering the market, probably using solid-state approaches, in the next three years.”
