The automotive industry is in the process of constant evolution since its origin in nineteenth century. The increasing number of o
The automotive industry is in the process of constant evolution since its origin in nineteenth century. The increasing number of on-road vehicles provides immense range of opportunities to the players in the automotive industry to develop innovative products. The automotive industry is currently experiencing a surge in the demand for driver assistance technology. Features such as adaptive cruise control, parking assistance, lane departure warning, automated emergency braking, and blindspot detection among others, are integrated in automobiles so as to improve the driver’s experience and increase the safety of humans both inside and outside the vehicle. In order to develop a highly efficient automated system, there is an impending demand of LiDAR sensors at present. Using LiDARs for automotive application not only enables a vehicle to sense the surroundings at a greater range but also provides highly accurate data when compared to other object sensing components such as camera, radars, ultrasonic sensors and infrared sensors, among others. In addition to this, integration of LiDARs permits the vehicle to map an automobile’s surroundings even in low light conditions. Depending upon the type of LiDARs can be segmented into mechanical and solid-state LiDARs. Furthermore, on the basis of application, automotive LiDAR can be segmented into automotive LiDARs for level 2 (partial automation), level 3 (conditional automation), level 4 (high automation) and level 5 (fully autonomous). At present, LiDARs for level 3 and level 4 LiDARs currently contribute to the automotive LiDAR market, while LiDARs for other levels of automation are still under development phase. Some of the key players in the automotive supply chain include Velodyne LiDAR, Innoluce, Innoviz technologies, Quanergy systems, LeddarTech and Phantom Intelligence.
Figure 1
Global Automotive LiDAR Market Size, 2016-2026

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The global automotive LiDAR market was anticipated to be $65 million in the year 2016. Due to increasing number of automated vehicles and anticipated decrease in manufacturing price of LiDAR systems, these factors are expected to drive the automotive LiDAR market at a double digit CAGR in the time period 2017-2027.
At present, mechanical LiDARs dominate the global automotive LiDAR market, due to an extensive demand for these LiDARs for purposes of testing of automated vehicle prototype Mechanical LiDARs are bulky, fragile and are expensive in nature, moreover, mechanical LiDARs offer various forms of challenges to the vehicle designer in the process of integration of the technology in the vehicles. Therefore, solid-state LiDARs are expected to enjoy market dominance over that of mechanical LiDARs in the upcoming years.
Lower levels of automation require single LiDARs to be integrated in a system as lower amount of surrounding data is required. However, with the increase in level of automation, multiple LiDARs are required to meet the data requirements of the automated systems. Currently, LiDARs for level 3 and level 4 automation contributes the major share of the global automotive LiDAR market, while LiDARs for level 2 and level 5 are still under development phases. Due to an expected increase in the number of high end automated vehicles, a high potential growth rate is anticipated for the automotive LiDAR market in the near future.
Europe, being home to a number of autonomous vehicle OEMs and major LiDARs manufacturers, contributes a major part of the growth of the automotive LiDAR market. The European players are actively expanding their footprints in the industry to attain a dominant grip over the market presence. These efforts include partnerships and collaborations with both local and foreign players. At the same time, North America, being one of the most technologically advanced regions, and headquarters for several emerging players, is expected to lead the market of automotive LiDARs in the upcoming years. On the other hand, the demand of automotive LiDARs in the APAC region is limited only to certain countries only. However, due to the presence of major automakers and increasing number of automated vehicle prototypes, the demand of automotive LiDARs in this region is anticipated to grow at a rapid pace in the upcoming years.