Recently, Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel (INTC), announced its plan for autonomous vehicle systems in 2025. The company will use an internally developed lidar sensor to replace the lidar sensor developed by its partner Luminar Technologies (LAZR) to minimize costs.
Amnon Shashua, CEO of Mobileye and Senior Vice President of Intel, said, "Mobileye's first-generation fully autonomous driving kit (including the Luminar lidar system, series of chips, sensors and software) is priced between 10,000 and 20,000 US dollars. The kit will be applied to the field of self-driving taxis, where the more frequent trips of commercial vehicles can effectively share the cost of the system."
According to reports, Mobileye plans to deploy 100 fully autonomous test vehicles in Tel Aviv, Israel, starting in 2022, and its test fleet will gradually expand to other cities.
In 2025, Mobileye will independently develop lidar sensors based on the frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) principle. “FMCW technology benefits from Intel’s expertise in silicon photonics manufacturing. In order to reduce the cost of consumer vehicles, Mobileye’s homemade lidar and cameras may replace the Luminar lidar system in autonomous taxis.” Shashua said, “We think , The cost of the entire autonomous driving system may be around several thousand dollars. If we can make achievements, the research and development results will be used for consumer vehicles such as self-driving taxis. We still have five years to make a decision."
Once the news was reported by the media, Luminar's stock price closed down 17% on the day. In November, Mobileye signed a supply agreement with Luminar, which stated that Mobileye will use the latter's lidar system in the first generation of driverless cars.
Luminar said, "The content of the original agreement will not change. Luminar has supplied Mobileye with lidar systems for nearly two years. Its products are only part of Mobileye's high cost of autonomous driving systems, which are priced at less than $1,000. It has exceeded Mobileye's cost and performance requirements."
Luminar agrees that the production of high-performance lidar at a cost of less than $1,000 is essential for mass-produced models. The commercial cooperation with Mobileye is based on the fact that Luminar is the first and only company to achieve the above goals. Luminar will The fulfillment of the contract stipulates the supply of lidar for Mobileye's new vehicles launched in 2022 and beyond.
Mobileye plans to install lidar and radar sensors on the camera to capture a three-dimensional view of the road to meet the safety and reliability requirements of automakers for mass production vehicles.
Mobileye supplies camera-based driver assistance systems to BMW, Volkswagen Group and Nissan. The system can implement functions such as adaptive cruise control and lane keeping. In addition, it can also generate and transmit map data for Mobileye while the vehicle is driving. These data enable the company's test vehicle to automatically navigate the streets of Munich, Germany, in just one week of setup time, without having to dispatch engineers from the Israeli headquarters to Germany.
After Mobileye released a video of the successful completion of the vehicle test, Shashua said, “This is a major milestone and the basis for large-scale popularization. To launch a consumer system, a car equipped with this system should be able to drive anywhere. ."
Mobileye plans to continue to outsource the production of its processor chips. The next-generation chip called EyeQ6 is expected to be available in 2023 and will continue to be produced by TSMC using its 7-nanometer chip manufacturing process.