MicroVision, a solid-state sensor technology company located in Redmond, Wash., says it has designed a solid-state automotive lidar sensor intended to reach production pricing below US $200. That’s less than half of typical prices now, and it’s not even the full extent of the company’s ambition. The company says its longer-term goal is $100 per unit. MicroVision’s claim, which, if realized, would place lidar within reach of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) rather than limiting it to high-end autonomous vehicle programs. Lidar’s limited market penetration comes down to one issue: cost.
Comparable mechanical lidars from multiple suppliers now sell in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. That price roughly tenfold drop, from about $80,000, helps explain why suppliers now are now hopeful that another steep price reduction is on the horizon.
For solid-state devices, “it is feasible to bring the cost down even more when manufacturing at high volume,” says Hayder Radha, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan State University and director of the school’s Connected & Autonomous Networked Vehicles for Active Safety program. With demand expanding beyond fully autonomous vehicles into driver-assistance applications, “one order or even two orders of magnitude reduction in cost are feasible.”
“We are focused on delivering automotive-grade lidar that can actually be deployed at scale,” says MicroVision CEO Glen DeVos. “That means designing for cost, manufacturability, and integration from the start—not treating price as an afterthought.”
MicroVision’s Lidar System
Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously dismissed lidar in 2019 as “a fool’s errand,” arguing that cameras and radar alone were sufficient for automated driving. A credible path to sub-$200 pricing would fundamentally alter the calculus of autonomous-car design by lowering the cost of adding precise three-dimensional sensing to mainstream vehicles. The shift reflects a broader industry trend toward solid-state lidar designs optimized for low-cost, high-volume manufacturing rather than maximum range or resolution.
Before those economics can be evaluated, however, it’s important to understand what MicroVision is proposing to build.
The company’s Movia S is a solid-state lidar. Mounted at the corners of a vehicle, the sensor sends out 905-nanometer-wavelength laser pulses and measures how long it takes for light reflected from the surfaces of nearby objects to return. The arrangement of the beam emitters and receivers provides a fixed field of view designed for 180-degree horizontal coverage rather than full 360-degree scanning typical of traditional mechanical units. The company says the unit can detect objects at distances of up to roughly 200 meters under favorable weather conditions—compared with the roughly 300-meter radius scanned by mechanical systems—and supports frame rates suitable for real-time perception in driver-assistance systems. Earlier mechanical lidars, used spinning components to steer their beams but the Movia S is a phased-arraysystem. It controls the amplitude and phase of the signals across an array of antenna elements to steer the beam. The unit is designed to meet automotive requirements for vibration tolerance, temperature range, and environmental sealing.
MicroVision’s pricing targets might sound aggressive, but they are not without precedent. The lidar industry has already experienced one major cost reset over the past decade.
“Automakers are not buying a single sensor in isolation... They are designing a perception system, and cost only matters if the system as a whole is viable.” –Glen DeVos, MicroVision
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