Last week, Velodyne LiDAR announced that it had received $150 million in funding from Ford Motor Company and Baidu. This week, Velodyne LiDAR’s CFO, Qing Lu, discussed details on how that money is going to be used.
In an interview with Benzinga, Lu explained that the money will help Velodyne “accelerate past the research and development stage and into mass production.”
That means the company, which currently produces “thousands of units a year,” will reach the economies of scale to produce “hundreds of thousands of units per year.” The overall effect will be much lower costs for the company’s automotive LiDAR.
As Velodyne LiDAR told SPAR last September, the mass production of sensors for the automotive market could bring down the cost of all other Velodyne sensors using the same core technology. This includes those for the survey, AEC, UAV, and robotics market.
Why Velodyne’s Forthcoming Car LiDAR is Good News for All Their Customers
In the interview, Lu also noted that the investment does not create an exclusive agreement between Velodyne and either of its investors.
