LiDAR firm Luminar unveils newest unit, aims to lead autonomous sector

With an intention to further solidify its ‘major player’ status in the LiDAR market, Luminar, in its recent announcement has unveiled its newest Lidar unit with a 120-degree field of view. Reportedly, the Silicon Valley-based startup has currently produced 100 units of the new Lidar system and further plans to produce them by the thousands.

If sources are to be believed, Luminar has been quite serious about producing enough Lidar systems to place itself in a leading position across the smart industry. Its 136,000 square-foot facility in Orlando, where it has cut down its build time from around a day to just 8 minutes, bears testament to the company’s growing appetite for deploying its systems on every single autonomous car on the road, cite sources.

Luminar’s CEO Austin Russell was quoted stating that the company has enough capacity to equip autonomous test & development vehicles on the road, worldwide. He further affirmed that the Lidar system is now an apt automotive serial product as it is no longer built in a handcrafted fashion.

With Luminar going the whole hog in strengthening its stance, it is quite overt that it will soon disrupt Velodyne’s monopoly in the Lidar market, speculate experts. Cutting on build times is one of the prominent steps the company is planning to take to stand a chance in catching up with its competitors.

Reports claim that Luminar has increased its staff by twofold, i.e. over 350 employees and has appointed Jason Wojack from Motorola as the head of its hardware team.

For the record, Luminar has only been in the sustainable & smart technologies industry since 2017 and has already got some large car makers to its name. The company is already in partnership with Toyota and will be placing its Lidar system onto its vehicles. Rumors are afloat that three other companies have also partnered with Luminar, however are not ready to disclose their identity as of now.