Chinese language lidar-maker Hesai introduced plans on Monday to double its manufacturing capability from 2 million models to 4 million models this yr, because it appears to nook the worldwide marketplace for the laser-based sensors. That may be nicely up from the 1 million-plus unit mark that Hesai hit in 2025.
Hesai’s push to seize extra market share comes only one month after main U.S. lidar-maker Luminar filed for Chapter 11 chapter. That firm shouldn’t be anticipated to proceed working as soon as its chapter plan is accepted, although it’s trying to promote the lidar enterprise.
Hesai has raised a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} over the previous couple of years and is now listed on each the Nasdaq and the Hong Kong inventory exchanges. That’s regardless of preventing an uphill battle towards the U.S. authorities, which has accused the company of working intently with China’s army trade — a cost that Hesai has challenged.
On the 2026 Shopper Electronics Present in Las Vegas, Hesai informed reporters it was capable of double the manufacturing goal due to “accelerating demand” within the automotive and robotics industries.
The corporate’s automotive efforts have been buoyed by the Chinese language automotive market’s adoption of lidar sensors, which Hesai stated is now in 25% of recent electrical automobiles bought within the nation. It additionally claimed that many new autos in China are anticipated to combine between three to 6 lidar sensors per automotive, “considerably increasing Hesai’s addressable market.” Hesai boasts 24 automotive clients, together with a “prime European” automaker, and stated it has 4 million orders for its latest ATX lidar sensor.
Automotive has proved to be a fickle marketplace for lidar sensors exterior of China. That was one of many contributing components to Luminar’s downfall, in line with the corporate’s personal chapter filings. Whereas Luminar secured offers to combine its lidar sensors on Volvo, Polestar, and Mercedes-Benz autos, these plans fell aside. Volvo had at one level agreed to purchase 1.1 million lidar sensors from Luminar, however delays to its new automobile packages and value overruns brought on the Swedish automaker to again out of the deal. (Volvo in the end solely bought round 10,000 sensors from Luminar.)
Robotics shouldn’t be assured to be a profitable marketplace for lidar sensors, however some gamers apart from Hesai see nice promise. San Francisco-based Ouster, which acquired rival participant Velodyne in 2023 because the lidar trade started to consolidate, has said it believes robotics represents a $14 billion market alternative. This consists of not simply humanoid robotics, however last-mile supply robots and army functions.
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At CES, Hesai is showcasing a robotic lawnmower and a robotic canine that use the corporate’s JT sequence lidar sensor. The corporate additionally hinted at its inclusion in humanoid robots as nicely. It has struck offers to offer lidar sensors to autonomous automobile firms like Pony AI, Motional, WeRide, and Baidu.
Hesai additionally boasted it has helped drive down the price of lidar sensors by 99.5% in simply eight years. That, too, was a contributing issue to Luminar’s downfall; “stress to cut back prices as a consequence of cheaper price factors of China-based rivals” has been repeatedly listed within the firm’s chapter filings because the second-most necessary issue that explains why the U.S. firm discovered it so exhausting to construct up a self-sustaining enterprise.
