Chinese lidar maker Hesai on Monday announced plans to double its production capacity from 2 million units to 4 million units this year as it tries to corner the global market for laser-based sensors. That would be quite over the top 1 million plus brand unit scored by Hesai in 2025.
Hesai’s push for more market share comes just a month after top US lidar company Luminar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That company is not expected to continue operating once its bankruptcy plan is approved, although it wants to sell the lidar business.
Hesai has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years and is now listed on both Nasdaq and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. And this despite the fact that we are fighting an uphill battle against the US government, which has blamed the company of working closely with China’s military industry — a charge Hesai disputed.
At the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Hesai told reporters it was able to double its production target due to “accelerating demand” in the automotive and robotics industries.
The company’s efforts in the automotive sector have been boosted by the Chinese car market’s adoption of lidar sensors, which Hesai said are now in 25 percent of new electric cars sold in the country. It also claimed that many new vehicles in China are expected to incorporate between three and six lidar sensors per car, “significantly expanding Hesai’s addressable market.” Hesai has 24 automotive customers, including a “top European” automaker, and said it has 4 million orders for its newest ATX lidar sensor.
The automotive industry has proven to be a volatile market for lidar sensors outside of China. This was one of the factors that contributed to Luminar’s downfall, according to the company’s own bankruptcy filings. While Luminar secured deals to integrate its lidar sensors into Volvo, Polestar and Mercedes-Benz vehicles, those plans fell through. Volvo had at one point agreed to buy 1.1 million lidar sensors from Luminar, but delays in its new vehicle programs and cost overruns forced the Swedish automaker to back out of the deal. (Volvo ultimately bought only about 10,000 sensors from Luminar.)
Robotics isn’t guaranteed to be a successful market for lidar sensors, but some players besides Hesai hold a lot of promise. San Francisco-based Ouster, which acquired rival player Velodyne in 2023 as the lidar industry began to consolidate, he said he believes Robotics represents a $14 billion market opportunity. This includes not only humanoid robotics, but last-mile delivery robots and military applications.
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At CES, Hesai is showing off a robotic lawnmower and a robotic dog that use the company’s JT series lidar sensor. The company also hinted at its inclusion in humanoid robots. It has made deals to supply lidar sensors to autonomous vehicle companies such as Pony AI, Motional, WeRide and Baidu.
Hesai also boasted that it helped reduce the cost of lidar sensors by 99.5% in just eight years. This, too, was a contributing factor to Luminar’s downfall. “Cost-cutting pressure due to lower prices from China-based competitors” is regularly cited in the company’s bankruptcy filings as the second most important factor explaining why the American company has had such a hard time building a self-sustaining business.
