Chinese LiDAR company Hesai Group HSAI announced a new deal with an unnamed Robotaxi company in the U.S. amid an autonomous driving push.
A Leading U.S. Company
The LiDAR maker announced the deal through an official statement released on Monday. The deal, valued at $40 million according to the statement, would see Hesai supply both short- and long-range LiDAR sensors to the Robotaxi company until the end of 2026.
“This expanded agreement demonstrates the confidence leading robotaxi companies place in Hesai’s technology, combining performance, high reliability, and scalable manufacturing,” David Li, CEO and co-founder of Hesai, said in the statement.
Easing Regulations, Robotaxi Expansions
The news comes as the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had proposed easing regulations for autonomous driving in the U.S. by revising the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), which he says were written for Human drivers.
Meanwhile, companies like Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL GOOG Waymo, as well as Tesla Inc. TSLA, have been expanding autonomous taxi services across multiple cities in the U.S.
Waymo recently announced it will begin Robotaxi testing operations within the San Jose airport premises, as Tesla rolled out its Robotaxi app on the Apple Inc. AAPL App Store, which quickly climbed the download charts.
Hesai had also announced earlier this year that it was working on a new generation of LiDAR systems that would enable Level 3 autonomous driving, set to launch next year. The company said the new gen LiDAR would boast two times the detection of its current best-seller, the AT128.
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