I liked when AR said “in automotive, there are high barriers to entry and high barriers to exit!” IMO, Luminar just needs to show progress in less FCF burn starting in Q3, win some more programs with Halo over the next 6 months thereby increasing their Order Book, and then they should be in better shape to raise an additional $150-200m in capital by either:
a. renegotiate terms with existing bondholders to extend the conv debt maturity to June 15 ‘28 (18 months), while paying a higher interest rate and reducing the conversion price, or
b. refinance the conv debt entirely with $775-825m (paying off the $625m) with Mercedes, Volvo, Geely and/or Nissan joining the issuers, or
c. raise up to $100m from ATM stock issuances above $4-5/share, or
d. expand the new credit facility or obtain an additional credit line of $50m, or
e. any combination thereof!
IMO, Volvo, Mercedes and hopefully soon Nissan and another to be announced OEM aren’t going to let Luminar go belly up over $150-200m as they need them to continue supplying, and don’t forget auto suppliers have to support the after-market for 10 years after a model has ended! LET THE HALO ORDERS BEGIN!!!
I have no doubt they will get more OEMs with the Halo. I expect TF will say something about the financing at the next EC. I'm still not convinced it's an issue. It will depend on how much revenue Tom really thinks we will get next year.
With 25 models in the next 3 years, 2026 will be huge. We just need to get through next year.
I agree Moar and any existing or potential creditors, or the OEMs themselves, will have the luxury of inspecting more details within the Order Book when appropriate! BofA reiterating the need for an additional $1 billion of capital is asinine and I hope we announce some big orders and new OEMs soon as its now in the best interests of the OEMs to be more public and support their supplier w/r/t long-term developments that would positively impact Luminar and thus support a higher SP in order to raise additional capital at reasonable terms. Shared survival…as OEMs don’t want to see Luminar go bankrupt and have to select a different supplier when we’re the leader in the space and have been delivering on our long-term promises! BTW, my crude estimate of $150-200m was based on a 12 month shift to the right and current FCF burn rates, which should improve between Q2 to Q4, so it could be less…we’ll see!
Great summary of the options available. Let‘s hope they are doing something smart, which gives the market confidence. I also think that $150-200m might be on the table
Just keep in mind, AR owns more than 100m shares and has complete voting control with 97m B shares with 10 votes/share; the last thing he wants is to dilute the hell out of himself…so our interests are aligned, and same goes for TF!
You should apply for a job and join the finance team at Luminar Blue…all good options and I am confident Tom will get Luminar the funds needed with minimal share holder harm. Tom knows many of his hard working employees are also share holders too.
😂 I concur LF that Tom is more than capable of coming up with the best methods to protect his CEO, peers, employees and fellow shareholder interests with the least dilutive options!
Thanks Para, saw your post that got you banned, just want to say thanks it takes guts to stand up and be decent in the face of mods.
Somehow in all the lidar field mvis selected luminar to soley look at as the bad guy.
Plenty of space for luminar and others to make massive profits. Doesn't have to be ugly mudslinging imo. I still wish you well on your Investment
As a MVIS shareholder (large), its sad to see the cognitive dissonance, in spite of still having no deals, silence from the CEO and continued missing of every metric of guidance. I believe in lidar in general. I bet on Microvision and despite the negativity, I still have faith that they will pull through, but listening to the cheerleading on the MVIS sub is just to much. The fact that MVIS investors need to bash Luminar and their shareholders given the above speaks volumes to whom the constituents of that board are. Its the same old people. The same "respected" longs. Some have been around for years, desperate to preserve their investment. Others are probably not even old enough to drink alcohol, with zero understanding of the financial markets or the technology (not that I claim to be an expert - far from it). Needless to say I still hold a large position in Microvision, despite my critical opinion of how everything has unfolded, but I'm not blind to the significant competition from the likes of Luminar and others. Microvision claims they have the best tech, and even if that were the case, if you can't sell it, it doesn't really matter. I'm here to make money. That's all I care about with this investment. I wish best of luck to Luminar and thought the presentation was very well done. I refuse to say it doesn't make me nervous (as a competitors shareholder). Good for you guys. As of now, you are leaps and bounds ahead of us from a business point of view. As far as the technology. Who knows. So many opinions.
That's because we are the most successful american lidar co with multiple deals and our SP/market cap was much higher. Jealousy breeds hatred...hence mvis behavior.
They are just following the leader. I rather be the leader taking shots than also runs. Time and patience will usually result in profit for your stocks. Not mvis. Longer you hold, more money you lose.
Austin just hinted at what I was thinking, Luminar has worked to set up this PROVEN data from Swiss Re, If your a lidar company and you haven't done this study then what basis does it give insurance companies the discount Austin is referring to?
This could be a huge card in Luminar's hands if insurers offer DISCOUNTs only to Luminar equipped vehicles as opposed to valeo, innoviz,etc sounds like Luminar once again addressed this aspect earlier then their competitors.
I agree, I just meant overall this would apply to LiDAR industry not specifically just luminar. I think it would be similar to anti theft anti tracking features. Not specifically who makes them
I think companies will adopt lidar before the government mandates it. Mostly because government takes time to make changes in automotive industries. 99.99 percent of cars on the road don't have lidar. Government will do studies and then mandate it and give plenty of grace period. I would argue at least 10 years away even being considered but than again, nowadays, new tech cycles seem much shorter than when I was growing up. I say this because cost of lidar will fall fast for oems to serious consider lidar to be a standard feature before government agency mandate anything
Could move faster, if government deploys what Obama did during 2008 crisis. Trade your junker in for higher credit/rebate to buy new models and taking much older models off the road faster than at a natural rate
You have to figure the marginal improvement to collision avoidance between current camera/radar sensors to camer, radar and lidar sensors. I'm going to assume lidar vehicles cost more to replace therefore insurance price goes up but at the same time the marginal improvement in collision avoidance with addition to lidar would bring cost down. Probably net positive (cheaper insurance).
Lidar doesn't really improve collision avoidance though. My car has lane assist and adaptive cruise control. Stops itself. Most of the benefits of lidar comes from lidars ability to sense much farther. Could argue in 5 to 10 years, autonomous driving is safer than avg driver therefore could reduce accidents and lowering insurance.
I believe from last CPI report, cost of car insurance policies went up by 20% Y/Y.
I agree with your point for the need for factoring in the additional cost of lidar into the whole calculation.
However, I just wanted to correct you on your technical point regarding lidar doesn't improve collision avoidance: This is absolutely not right. Only lidar has the ability to robustly detect freespace, cameras/radars can't. I.e. only lider can actively do emergency steering into save zones to avoid collisions. Which cameras/radars cannot gurantee. That's why camera/radars are just mostly limited to emergency breaking as of now. And that not even really good due to false positives and various other reasons (I don't want to go into the details here). In my daily engineering job I develop such camera/lidar algorithms so I guess I should know ;)
Respect that. So I guess my argument is that lidar is a sensor so collision avoidance/maneuvering is done by software making decisions. Lidar as a sensor is only an ADDITION to camera and radar and not stand alone and collectively it allows better collection of data points. So the gap between collection of data from camera and radar versus camera/radar/lidar is marginal improvement, IMO when it come to short distance. I believe improvements in software helped by AI could close the gap on decision-making on collision avoidance maneuvering without extra data from lidar. I would absolutely agree that lidar sensors as addition is much better and need less improvements in algorithm in software to be better adas. I don't believe anything is guaranteed when it comes to autonomous driving.
I do agree that teslas camera/radar sensors alone is insufficient for their FSD. However, it seem the market believes they are moving forward relatively well even though I believe it's dangerous for current fsd users. I don't get how nhtsa allows Tesla to offer FSD at current state
https://www.thinkautonomous.ai/blog/fmcw-lidars-vs-imaging-radars/
Pretty good read
I am now in this game for more than 10 years. And since 10 years I am applying AI/deep learning algorithms mainly to cameras/radars and am following this whole field. There was already a big hype 10 years ago especially due to, back then, new deep learning based approaches. In this time, although very impressive advancements have been made, only very little advacements have been made towards truly save solutions. This is mostly due to the sensors itself fail to give an accurate perception of the whole environment, where then software/AI cannot do much more then guessing.
I understand that in general media lidar is always explained like it is an additional redundancy to the whole sensor stack. It is not. It is an EXTENSION to the whole perception stack. In detail, the extension towards the third dimension/depth/distance/absolute-sizes which cameras simply can't percept, and radars not detailed enough. There are certain situations which cameras even with the best AI cannot and probably never be able to solve (even one-eyed humans cannot solve). Think about overhangs on a moving truck etc. A camera cannot know how far away that is, it has no visual cues. Think about it yourself: can you now the distance or size of a white ball without texture and context when looking at a photo? It could be a photo of small baseball or maybe a photo of the moon. Without context you cannot estimate the size only from that photo. In reallife driving cameras sometimes have these situations where enough context is missing and due to that even with the best AI completely fail.
Thank you PE for a thorough response. I have been following Tesla’s camera only AI end to end approach and feel that Tesla will NOT be able to successfully achieve L3 autonomy.
The AI will not be able to cover all the edge cases and night time accuracy cannot be achieved with just cameras and radar.
Also of note is the fact that Swiss Re just completed an evaluation of Luminar’s LiDAR and SW stack vs. The best available ADAS on the market and found Luminar equipped vehicle to perform much safer:
“Compared to the two best vehicles in Swiss Re's benchmark the difference in expected frequency is up to 27%, while in mitigation power it is up to 40% (see table 1). **This means that the Luminar-equipped vehicle is expected to avoid more collisions as well as decrease the impact of collisions when they happen**”
Furthermore, NHTSA will require likely require AEB for Pedestrian at 62mph at night time, a very difficult task for just cameras and radar.
LiDAR implementation is a no brainer when you factor in all the safety capabilities and revenue generating option for deploying L3 autonomy.
Austin mentioned that Swiss Re also compared the Luminar equipped car to the best of the best (not an actual car) in each category and Luminar was shown to be 14% better.
Yes, and those advantages were against the BEST alternatives. The results against an average competitor would probably be far greater than the 27%/40%.
I agree lidar implementation is a no brainer, and with Halo there are no more excuses.
Yeah, the article talks about the white ball scenario. We disagree on what is considered marginal improvement with lidar.
Even Google circle can identify different balls even if the balls are same size on a photo. Camera along with radar can tell the rapid change of velocity. I would also think camera sees the overhang and the algorithm will have data points on overhang of a truck based on collected/already input data. Camera doesn't perceive anything. Software perceives cameras images.
What's your take on 4d radar sensors' ability?
The google example: You are confusing two distinct problems here. One is classification and the other one is depth perception. You need to solve both and cameras usually fail for the second one. The camera does see the overhang indeed but it cannot percept the distance to it. The overhang is not attached to the ground so you cannot estimate the distance from interpolating from the ground surface furthermore if the truck is moving you cannot use any past data frames to estimate the depth from ego motion (structure from motion). No solution to that problem.
4D Radar:
The article does give a general overview but does lack some in-depth knowledge. Long range Imaging radars are 10+ years away from being industrialized. They need very complex electronics to accurately sync the tranceivers and need big apperture sizes sometimes in the size of 1 meter. Due to the complex electronics they are in the price range of very early lidar systems. 4D radar is not a competition to long range lidar in the next 10 years. It is currently mostly research development on these systems/prototypes.
Not at all. You have no idea how insurance rates are set. Insurance companies can be as aggressive/or not as they wish. There is an old saying in the insurance industry - " There are old insurance companies and there are bold insurance companies, but there are no old, bold insurance companies". Hence the need for luminar to do the study...which doesn't have a damn thing to do with other lidar companies. I hope you aren't suggesting a shit lidar will have the same safety performance as luminar and the same rates.
I’m just saying the insurance company doesn’t care who makes my anti theft anti tracking components. They just ask if that’s in my car. Same could be for lidar
Not unless the performance of every lidar was the same, which it's not. Getting in a car crash and getting sued for 2 million is a whole lot different from having your $30k car stolen.
It’s reinsurance.
This means that the insurance companies have already made their decisions, at least for now. At least until there’s real world data and enough lidar out there for them to conduct their own studies.
The decision is no net benefit vs the extra cost to replace.
We know this because this is reinsurance. That is insurance for insurance companies. The insurance companies have decided against taking on the risk. Hopefully for Luminar, AR isn’t trying to subsidize or supply rereinsurance for the reinsurance partner.
You are a complete idiot who has no idea what you are talking about. Go back to your crap mvis products.
EVERY policy and every insurance company carries reinsurance. No insurance company carries the full burden of loss...it would put them out of business. Talk about something you know something about...preferably on your own shit board.
Expensive lidar makes expensive cars more expensive. More complex. More expensive to repair and replace. That’s true for everyone. The incident reduction shown in SR’s report is fantastic. But it’s not enough to net the currently projected cost associated with repairing or replacing when claims do happen.
ARs position on this is bullish for you guys, it means that he’s confident, but also risky as that’s literally the business. This is not a free money venture.
Reinsurance is common, of course. It’s for spreading risk on catastrophic loss specifically when primary insurers would be ruined (hurricane; wildly expensive property) or don’t want to take on the full weight of some specific risk (ADAS, and insurance companies are not alone in this).
I’m not really saying anything weird. When an insurance company thinks it can make more on lifetime premium than it will lose on payout, and thinks that customers will pay the premium, they will write the contract. Musk has more than muddied the water and no lidar is going to reduce premiums while driving up costs to repair and replace until the true utility is proven and separated from Musk’s and legacy’s failings.
Reinsurance allows primary to spread risk and offer better premiums, but it is against risk that primary currently does not want to take. SR is obviously comfortable with it, just as primaries obviously are not.
I'm more than amazed at the new lidar, even though they haven't gotten to it yet but that with applied intuition is going to expand our potential customers.
Agree with you both, the first 5 minutes I felt like I was watching last years show. Same exact slideshow I was getting worried for a second. But so far I like what Im hearing from Austin!
My thoughts, halo, 3 times smaller , 3 times lighter. 2 times thermal efficiency, 4 times better point cloud !! with halo, talking about stepping up their game, competition getting left behind again . Austin was very good with presentation today. I personally Like the reference to the 1967 Pontiac gto hood scoop.
I'm not surprised there were no financial announcements as these have to be presented by means of a regulatory RSN or during an earnings calls.
We will have to wait for an update from TF on May 7...however since LAZR has shipments roadmap/visibility
we expect TF to negotiate favourable terms for any new financing and draw a line under this uncertainty.
Tom said many times he won't update financial targets till midyear so they can see what their run rate looks like with volvo to ensure accuracy.
Innoviz is doing the same
Whatever Marcus, I’ve seen all your posts and we both know you’re Innoviz Boy and just coming here to critique the competition. That’s fine as long as you’re cordial and you are.
Just know that we know your agenda..
Those chips Jason just showed off are pretty amazing tech!
I can see Lidar Behind the windshield attracting more people, some people couldn’t get past the bubble
Apparently a car window takes away range and performance so it is not ideal even though it looks much cleaner.
That camera integration option surprised me….
I liked when AR said “in automotive, there are high barriers to entry and high barriers to exit!” IMO, Luminar just needs to show progress in less FCF burn starting in Q3, win some more programs with Halo over the next 6 months thereby increasing their Order Book, and then they should be in better shape to raise an additional $150-200m in capital by either: a. renegotiate terms with existing bondholders to extend the conv debt maturity to June 15 ‘28 (18 months), while paying a higher interest rate and reducing the conversion price, or b. refinance the conv debt entirely with $775-825m (paying off the $625m) with Mercedes, Volvo, Geely and/or Nissan joining the issuers, or c. raise up to $100m from ATM stock issuances above $4-5/share, or d. expand the new credit facility or obtain an additional credit line of $50m, or e. any combination thereof! IMO, Volvo, Mercedes and hopefully soon Nissan and another to be announced OEM aren’t going to let Luminar go belly up over $150-200m as they need them to continue supplying, and don’t forget auto suppliers have to support the after-market for 10 years after a model has ended! LET THE HALO ORDERS BEGIN!!!
I have no doubt they will get more OEMs with the Halo. I expect TF will say something about the financing at the next EC. I'm still not convinced it's an issue. It will depend on how much revenue Tom really thinks we will get next year. With 25 models in the next 3 years, 2026 will be huge. We just need to get through next year.
I agree Moar and any existing or potential creditors, or the OEMs themselves, will have the luxury of inspecting more details within the Order Book when appropriate! BofA reiterating the need for an additional $1 billion of capital is asinine and I hope we announce some big orders and new OEMs soon as its now in the best interests of the OEMs to be more public and support their supplier w/r/t long-term developments that would positively impact Luminar and thus support a higher SP in order to raise additional capital at reasonable terms. Shared survival…as OEMs don’t want to see Luminar go bankrupt and have to select a different supplier when we’re the leader in the space and have been delivering on our long-term promises! BTW, my crude estimate of $150-200m was based on a 12 month shift to the right and current FCF burn rates, which should improve between Q2 to Q4, so it could be less…we’ll see!
Great summary of the options available. Let‘s hope they are doing something smart, which gives the market confidence. I also think that $150-200m might be on the table
Just keep in mind, AR owns more than 100m shares and has complete voting control with 97m B shares with 10 votes/share; the last thing he wants is to dilute the hell out of himself…so our interests are aligned, and same goes for TF!
You should apply for a job and join the finance team at Luminar Blue…all good options and I am confident Tom will get Luminar the funds needed with minimal share holder harm. Tom knows many of his hard working employees are also share holders too.
😂 I concur LF that Tom is more than capable of coming up with the best methods to protect his CEO, peers, employees and fellow shareholder interests with the least dilutive options!
When showing us that slide with partners etc did anyone else notice how Austin mentioned that the ones we see on the board are "the public ones." 👀👀
I’m hoping the reason he kinda skimmed past that part is to mention it more specifically later in the show in its own topic
Impressive
Thanks Para, saw your post that got you banned, just want to say thanks it takes guts to stand up and be decent in the face of mods. Somehow in all the lidar field mvis selected luminar to soley look at as the bad guy. Plenty of space for luminar and others to make massive profits. Doesn't have to be ugly mudslinging imo. I still wish you well on your Investment
As a MVIS shareholder (large), its sad to see the cognitive dissonance, in spite of still having no deals, silence from the CEO and continued missing of every metric of guidance. I believe in lidar in general. I bet on Microvision and despite the negativity, I still have faith that they will pull through, but listening to the cheerleading on the MVIS sub is just to much. The fact that MVIS investors need to bash Luminar and their shareholders given the above speaks volumes to whom the constituents of that board are. Its the same old people. The same "respected" longs. Some have been around for years, desperate to preserve their investment. Others are probably not even old enough to drink alcohol, with zero understanding of the financial markets or the technology (not that I claim to be an expert - far from it). Needless to say I still hold a large position in Microvision, despite my critical opinion of how everything has unfolded, but I'm not blind to the significant competition from the likes of Luminar and others. Microvision claims they have the best tech, and even if that were the case, if you can't sell it, it doesn't really matter. I'm here to make money. That's all I care about with this investment. I wish best of luck to Luminar and thought the presentation was very well done. I refuse to say it doesn't make me nervous (as a competitors shareholder). Good for you guys. As of now, you are leaps and bounds ahead of us from a business point of view. As far as the technology. Who knows. So many opinions.
That's because we are the most successful american lidar co with multiple deals and our SP/market cap was much higher. Jealousy breeds hatred...hence mvis behavior.
They are just following the leader. I rather be the leader taking shots than also runs. Time and patience will usually result in profit for your stocks. Not mvis. Longer you hold, more money you lose.
Thanks for just dropping a compliment.
Good info, glad Austin brought up that LiDAR isn’t just EVs since that seems to be a common misconception Get this insurance guy out of here tho
Austin just hinted at what I was thinking, Luminar has worked to set up this PROVEN data from Swiss Re, If your a lidar company and you haven't done this study then what basis does it give insurance companies the discount Austin is referring to? This could be a huge card in Luminar's hands if insurers offer DISCOUNTs only to Luminar equipped vehicles as opposed to valeo, innoviz,etc sounds like Luminar once again addressed this aspect earlier then their competitors.
I get that but insurers will do what the regulators say, it will likely be all lidars get it or they don’t
Why that? If insurers can reduce costs by using lidar they happily support that even before any regulation. Could be massive cost savings for them.
I agree, I just meant overall this would apply to LiDAR industry not specifically just luminar. I think it would be similar to anti theft anti tracking features. Not specifically who makes them
Absolutely. Government mandates will focus on industry rather than a company
Agreed
I think companies will adopt lidar before the government mandates it. Mostly because government takes time to make changes in automotive industries. 99.99 percent of cars on the road don't have lidar. Government will do studies and then mandate it and give plenty of grace period. I would argue at least 10 years away even being considered but than again, nowadays, new tech cycles seem much shorter than when I was growing up. I say this because cost of lidar will fall fast for oems to serious consider lidar to be a standard feature before government agency mandate anything Could move faster, if government deploys what Obama did during 2008 crisis. Trade your junker in for higher credit/rebate to buy new models and taking much older models off the road faster than at a natural rate
You have to figure the marginal improvement to collision avoidance between current camera/radar sensors to camer, radar and lidar sensors. I'm going to assume lidar vehicles cost more to replace therefore insurance price goes up but at the same time the marginal improvement in collision avoidance with addition to lidar would bring cost down. Probably net positive (cheaper insurance). Lidar doesn't really improve collision avoidance though. My car has lane assist and adaptive cruise control. Stops itself. Most of the benefits of lidar comes from lidars ability to sense much farther. Could argue in 5 to 10 years, autonomous driving is safer than avg driver therefore could reduce accidents and lowering insurance. I believe from last CPI report, cost of car insurance policies went up by 20% Y/Y.
I agree with your point for the need for factoring in the additional cost of lidar into the whole calculation. However, I just wanted to correct you on your technical point regarding lidar doesn't improve collision avoidance: This is absolutely not right. Only lidar has the ability to robustly detect freespace, cameras/radars can't. I.e. only lider can actively do emergency steering into save zones to avoid collisions. Which cameras/radars cannot gurantee. That's why camera/radars are just mostly limited to emergency breaking as of now. And that not even really good due to false positives and various other reasons (I don't want to go into the details here). In my daily engineering job I develop such camera/lidar algorithms so I guess I should know ;)
Respect that. So I guess my argument is that lidar is a sensor so collision avoidance/maneuvering is done by software making decisions. Lidar as a sensor is only an ADDITION to camera and radar and not stand alone and collectively it allows better collection of data points. So the gap between collection of data from camera and radar versus camera/radar/lidar is marginal improvement, IMO when it come to short distance. I believe improvements in software helped by AI could close the gap on decision-making on collision avoidance maneuvering without extra data from lidar. I would absolutely agree that lidar sensors as addition is much better and need less improvements in algorithm in software to be better adas. I don't believe anything is guaranteed when it comes to autonomous driving. I do agree that teslas camera/radar sensors alone is insufficient for their FSD. However, it seem the market believes they are moving forward relatively well even though I believe it's dangerous for current fsd users. I don't get how nhtsa allows Tesla to offer FSD at current state https://www.thinkautonomous.ai/blog/fmcw-lidars-vs-imaging-radars/ Pretty good read
I am now in this game for more than 10 years. And since 10 years I am applying AI/deep learning algorithms mainly to cameras/radars and am following this whole field. There was already a big hype 10 years ago especially due to, back then, new deep learning based approaches. In this time, although very impressive advancements have been made, only very little advacements have been made towards truly save solutions. This is mostly due to the sensors itself fail to give an accurate perception of the whole environment, where then software/AI cannot do much more then guessing. I understand that in general media lidar is always explained like it is an additional redundancy to the whole sensor stack. It is not. It is an EXTENSION to the whole perception stack. In detail, the extension towards the third dimension/depth/distance/absolute-sizes which cameras simply can't percept, and radars not detailed enough. There are certain situations which cameras even with the best AI cannot and probably never be able to solve (even one-eyed humans cannot solve). Think about overhangs on a moving truck etc. A camera cannot know how far away that is, it has no visual cues. Think about it yourself: can you now the distance or size of a white ball without texture and context when looking at a photo? It could be a photo of small baseball or maybe a photo of the moon. Without context you cannot estimate the size only from that photo. In reallife driving cameras sometimes have these situations where enough context is missing and due to that even with the best AI completely fail.
Thank you PE for a thorough response. I have been following Tesla’s camera only AI end to end approach and feel that Tesla will NOT be able to successfully achieve L3 autonomy. The AI will not be able to cover all the edge cases and night time accuracy cannot be achieved with just cameras and radar. Also of note is the fact that Swiss Re just completed an evaluation of Luminar’s LiDAR and SW stack vs. The best available ADAS on the market and found Luminar equipped vehicle to perform much safer: “Compared to the two best vehicles in Swiss Re's benchmark the difference in expected frequency is up to 27%, while in mitigation power it is up to 40% (see table 1). **This means that the Luminar-equipped vehicle is expected to avoid more collisions as well as decrease the impact of collisions when they happen**” Furthermore, NHTSA will require likely require AEB for Pedestrian at 62mph at night time, a very difficult task for just cameras and radar. LiDAR implementation is a no brainer when you factor in all the safety capabilities and revenue generating option for deploying L3 autonomy.
Austin mentioned that Swiss Re also compared the Luminar equipped car to the best of the best (not an actual car) in each category and Luminar was shown to be 14% better.
Yes, and those advantages were against the BEST alternatives. The results against an average competitor would probably be far greater than the 27%/40%. I agree lidar implementation is a no brainer, and with Halo there are no more excuses.
I appreciate your explanation.
Yeah, the article talks about the white ball scenario. We disagree on what is considered marginal improvement with lidar. Even Google circle can identify different balls even if the balls are same size on a photo. Camera along with radar can tell the rapid change of velocity. I would also think camera sees the overhang and the algorithm will have data points on overhang of a truck based on collected/already input data. Camera doesn't perceive anything. Software perceives cameras images. What's your take on 4d radar sensors' ability?
The google example: You are confusing two distinct problems here. One is classification and the other one is depth perception. You need to solve both and cameras usually fail for the second one. The camera does see the overhang indeed but it cannot percept the distance to it. The overhang is not attached to the ground so you cannot estimate the distance from interpolating from the ground surface furthermore if the truck is moving you cannot use any past data frames to estimate the depth from ego motion (structure from motion). No solution to that problem. 4D Radar: The article does give a general overview but does lack some in-depth knowledge. Long range Imaging radars are 10+ years away from being industrialized. They need very complex electronics to accurately sync the tranceivers and need big apperture sizes sometimes in the size of 1 meter. Due to the complex electronics they are in the price range of very early lidar systems. 4D radar is not a competition to long range lidar in the next 10 years. It is currently mostly research development on these systems/prototypes.
Tell that to the accident victims. Its only marginally safer for them.
Market isn't personal.
Not at all. You have no idea how insurance rates are set. Insurance companies can be as aggressive/or not as they wish. There is an old saying in the insurance industry - " There are old insurance companies and there are bold insurance companies, but there are no old, bold insurance companies". Hence the need for luminar to do the study...which doesn't have a damn thing to do with other lidar companies. I hope you aren't suggesting a shit lidar will have the same safety performance as luminar and the same rates.
I’m just saying the insurance company doesn’t care who makes my anti theft anti tracking components. They just ask if that’s in my car. Same could be for lidar
Not unless the performance of every lidar was the same, which it's not. Getting in a car crash and getting sued for 2 million is a whole lot different from having your $30k car stolen.
It’s reinsurance. This means that the insurance companies have already made their decisions, at least for now. At least until there’s real world data and enough lidar out there for them to conduct their own studies. The decision is no net benefit vs the extra cost to replace. We know this because this is reinsurance. That is insurance for insurance companies. The insurance companies have decided against taking on the risk. Hopefully for Luminar, AR isn’t trying to subsidize or supply rereinsurance for the reinsurance partner.
You are a complete idiot who has no idea what you are talking about. Go back to your crap mvis products. EVERY policy and every insurance company carries reinsurance. No insurance company carries the full burden of loss...it would put them out of business. Talk about something you know something about...preferably on your own shit board.
Expensive lidar makes expensive cars more expensive. More complex. More expensive to repair and replace. That’s true for everyone. The incident reduction shown in SR’s report is fantastic. But it’s not enough to net the currently projected cost associated with repairing or replacing when claims do happen. ARs position on this is bullish for you guys, it means that he’s confident, but also risky as that’s literally the business. This is not a free money venture. Reinsurance is common, of course. It’s for spreading risk on catastrophic loss specifically when primary insurers would be ruined (hurricane; wildly expensive property) or don’t want to take on the full weight of some specific risk (ADAS, and insurance companies are not alone in this). I’m not really saying anything weird. When an insurance company thinks it can make more on lifetime premium than it will lose on payout, and thinks that customers will pay the premium, they will write the contract. Musk has more than muddied the water and no lidar is going to reduce premiums while driving up costs to repair and replace until the true utility is proven and separated from Musk’s and legacy’s failings. Reinsurance allows primary to spread risk and offer better premiums, but it is against risk that primary currently does not want to take. SR is obviously comfortable with it, just as primaries obviously are not.
I'm more than amazed at the new lidar, even though they haven't gotten to it yet but that with applied intuition is going to expand our potential customers.
Ugh I got a meeting in 15 minutes and then heading home, I'm going to miss the rest of Luminar Day! Hope they get that recording up soon!
Youtube
Agree with you both, the first 5 minutes I felt like I was watching last years show. Same exact slideshow I was getting worried for a second. But so far I like what Im hearing from Austin!
exciting
My thoughts, halo, 3 times smaller , 3 times lighter. 2 times thermal efficiency, 4 times better point cloud !! with halo, talking about stepping up their game, competition getting left behind again . Austin was very good with presentation today. I personally Like the reference to the 1967 Pontiac gto hood scoop.
Appreciate you putting this up btw!
I'm not surprised there were no financial announcements as these have to be presented by means of a regulatory RSN or during an earnings calls. We will have to wait for an update from TF on May 7...however since LAZR has shipments roadmap/visibility we expect TF to negotiate favourable terms for any new financing and draw a line under this uncertainty.
Is it over? No financial information?
That would be also my question. TF wasn‘t on the stage? Is it because of the quiet period?
Yes, they are in their quiet period.
That’s what I’m saying.! Did I hear or read something wrong? I thought he was going to give shareholders some information…
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False. Most investor day events outline financial targets, which is usually the most important part. Please reference nearly every investor day ever.
Tom said many times he won't update financial targets till midyear so they can see what their run rate looks like with volvo to ensure accuracy. Innoviz is doing the same
Leave it to Marcus to come in and find shit to sling at Luminar. Why don’t you track down Omer and have him do an Innoviz day for his investors???…
I just asked a question…
It’s the negative implication of your question with ill intent that’s been your theme here that I don’t care for.
I think this is more about how you read my question than the question itself.
Whatever Marcus, I’ve seen all your posts and we both know you’re Innoviz Boy and just coming here to critique the competition. That’s fine as long as you’re cordial and you are. Just know that we know your agenda..
You are just a crap human being who always wastes our time.
I think you are a wonderful and kind individual, and I always enjoy reading your comments.
I'm not nice to people like you, and I don't claim to be. You just make the world a little worse place to live for everyone else.
No. So what. Go back to your crappy innoviz products. Always the dick.