Waymo will no longer sell its ‘Laser Bear Honeycomb’ lidar sensors to other companies (2024)
Waymo is getting out of the lidar selling business. The Alphabet-owned company said it would no longer sell its laser sensors to other companies, ending a nearly three-year-old revenue stream for the self-driving leader. The news was first reported by The Information.
Lidar, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, are laser sensors that are seen as an essential component for self-driving cars. The sensors are placed on the roofs of autonomous vehicles, as well as the sides and grilles, where they send out thousands of laser points to map the surrounding environment.
Waymofirst began manufacturing its own lidar sensorsin early 2017 as a way to dramatically reduce the costs of its autonomous vehicle business. At the time, the company said that by making its own sensors, it could lower the unit price from $75,000 for an off-the-shelf lidar sensor to just $7,500.
In 2019, Waymo went a step further, announcing that it would begin selling its lidar, awesomely dubbed the “Laser Bear Honeycomb,” to customers that won’t compete with its robot taxi business. That included companies working on robotics, security, and agricultural technology.
But it’s unclear how lucrative this business was for Waymo. The company did not disclose how many lidar it sold, nor how many clients had purchased them. A spokesperson said Waymo would continue to make its lidars in-house for its own vehicles.
“We’re winding down our commercial lidar business as we maintain our focus on developing and deploying our Waymo Driver across our Waymo One (ride-hailing) and Waymo Via (delivery) units,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement. “As we continue to advance our technology and scale our business, we’re focused on areas that will be most impactful for Waymo’s core businesses and in service of our mission.”
After over a decade of working on this technology, Waymo has only a little bit of actual revenue flowing in. It operates a robotaxi service in the suburbs around Phoenix, Arizona, where it conducts around 1,000-2,000 rides every week. The company recently announced plans to launch a similar service in San Francisco. It also has a number of delivery pilots involving its autonomous semi-trailer trucks, but it’s not known how much revenue Waymo generates from those, if any.
In 2020, it was estimated that Alphabet had spent over $3.5 billion on Waymo over the years. Those costs are expected to rise as the company seeks to ramp up its autonomous taxi and delivery services.
Waymo is getting out of the lidar selling business. The Alphabet
Alphabet
Alphabet is the world's third-largest technology company by revenue and one of the world's most valuable companies. It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries.
-owned company said it would no longer sell its laser sensors to other companies, ending a nearly three-year-old revenue stream for the self-driving leader. The news was first reported by The Information.
The Waymo Driver's lidar, for example, is a Class-1 laser product within the FDA certification system—the same classification as the low-power lasers in common household appliances including CD and DVD players.
Limited range: Lidar sensors have a limited range, typically up to a few hundred meters. This can be a problem in certain applications, such as long-range surveillance or monitoring. Limited resolution: Lidar sensors have limited resolution, which can make it difficult to distinguish small objects or details.
Waymo uses 29 cameras mounted on the sides and top of the car, six radar sensors tracking larger objects and four LiDAR sensors, which use laser pulses to "see" the car's surroundings in 3D.
In 2011, Waymo began developing its own set of sensors from the ground up, including three types of lidars, including short-range lidars dubbed Laser Bear Honeycomb.
However, when the showing distance is as small as 9m, Lidar detection will fail and it is necessary to brake the vehicle manually. The Lidar detection failure event shows in 6 m in the sunny-day test. This difference in results indi- cates that rainy days can affect the Lidar sensor results.
One of the Disadvantage of Lidar data is Data processing complexity: Managing and processing LiDAR data requires specialized software and expertise, which can be time-consuming and challenging. Processing LiDAR data is essential to terrain analysis and presents a number of obstacles as well as benefits.
Abstract. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is widely used in autonomous vehicles to obtain precise 3D information about surrounding road environments. However, under bad weather conditions, such as rain, snow, and fog, LiDAR-detection performance is reduced.
Waymo is authorized to use a fleet of light-duty autonomous vehicles for commercial services within parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties. The vehicles are approved to operate on public roads with a speed limit of no more than 65 mph and can also operate in rain and light fog.
Waymo, owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, is launching 50 autonomous vehicles in L.A. after having tested the robotaxis in various neighborhoods for more than a year.
I doubt they're profitable though. From Bing: > As of the latest available information, Waymo is not yet profitable. Alphabet's Q2 2023 earnings report indicated that its “Other Bets” category, which includes Waymo, had revenues of $285 million and an operating loss of $813 million.
How much is a Waymo ride? The cost of a Waymo ride varies based on many factors, like location and trip duration, but are generally comparable to the same trip in an Uber or Lyft. Waymo can be slightly cheaper in the base fare, and there is also no driver to tip.
A driverless Waymo vehicle struck a cyclist in San Francisco, causing minor injuries. It was the latest incident in the city at a time when tensions around autonomous vehicles are particularly high after a driverless Cruise vehicle injured a pedestrian.
Waymo continues to use LIDAR technology, which was initially thought crucial for autonomous vehicles. However, Tesla and other companies like OpenPilot have developed competitive self-driving technologies using cameras and sensors, challenging the necessity of LIDAR.
First, our family of lidar sensors allows the Waymo Driver to see the world in incredible detail, using light waves to paint rich 3D pictures, known as point clouds, both up close and at long distances.
Automotive LiDAR scanners are autonomous vehicle sensors essential to the development of autonomous cars. Valeo's LiDAR technology is considered one of the best Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) on the market.
Introduction: My name is Pres. Lawanda Wiegand, I am a inquisitive, helpful, glamorous, cheerful, open, clever, innocent person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
