The “Stakeholders” Shifting China Automotive LiDAR Market

There was a time when automakers in China touted their EV models by stressing the number of LiDAR sensors and even the performance parameters of that LiDAR product. Regardless of whether such campaigns made sense to end consumers, we don’t hear this any more. Actually, we come across statistics such as a breakthrough in Q3 2024 with 423,400 LiDAR sensors delivered (for pre-installed passenger cars excluding exports).

In order to understand how the market has shifted over the past few years, we review the major “stakeholders” that will ultimately define the future of automotive LiDAR in China.

To straighten out some terms, Navigation on Autopilot (NOA) is an advanced intelligent driving function allowing a car to navigate itself on the road with actions like stopping, steering, changing lanes, etc. It is a similar concept to Tesla FSD but the naming was slightly twisted by different companies. For example,

· Huawei calls it NCA (Navigation Cruise Assist),

· Nio calls it NOP (Navigate on Pilot),

· Xpeng calls it NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot).

We refer it all as NOA in this post. Generally speaking, NOA has been implemented for highways and city expressways on a scale and is rolling out to complex city roads. So, city NOA is a level up from highway NOA implicitly including the latter.

BYD

BYD was recently ranked the 7th world’s largest automaker by Q2 sales volume, surpassing Honda and Nissan for the first time. It seized the global BEV sales crown in Q4 of last year. The company has obviously skyrocketed within a few years time by betting on electrification. When US and China rivals were raving about the future of autonomous driving, the CEO called it a false proposition. Now it is burning over 100million yuan on a daily basis, according to the company’s first half of 2024 report, building up its core competence in intelligence. BYD has joined the race, just in time.

Yangwang is positioned as a luxury brand and Denza as mid to high-end brand in the BYD group, with each having launched a model in 2023 equipped with LiDAR sensors. This year, LiDAR seems to have become a standard sensor on Yangwang and Denza cars with the launch of Z9GT, upcoming U7 and all-new D9. Meanwhile, mass-market models from the Ocean and Dynasty series began to feature LiDARs. The 2025 Seal from the Ocean series launched a LiDAR edition in August priced 216,800+ yuan, followed by the 2025 Han from the Dynasty series with the LiDAR edition sold for 225,800+ yuan.

Basically, the LiDAR models come with DiPilot 300 to enable city NOA and are priced above 200,000 yuan. While the mid to high-end models are transforming with intelligence, BYD revealed a strong desire to offer advanced driving features to models sold between 100,000 to 200,000 yuan in 2025 and even below 100,000 yuan in the near future.

To achieve the ambition, BYD is open to work with different suppliers besides the growing in-house R&D team. An upcoming model (Bao8) from the sub-brand Fangchengbao was confirmed to adopt Huawei ADS 3.0 intelligent driving solution, sold in the price range of 400,000 to 500,000 yuan.

Additionally, BYD was reported to be developing LiDAR sensors since 2022 aiming for the low-channel product with a targeted unit cost of 900 yuan. Given the company’s main battlefield is in affordable mass-market models, it makes sense to demand such LiDARs in its future sensor suite.

Huawei

As an intelligent driving solution provider, Huawei has teamed up with eight OEMs so far and together delivered various vehicle models, some of which got into top selling charts.

Its 1st generation solution was launched on Arcfox S and Avatr 11 in 2021. That leveraged 13 cameras, 6 mmWave radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors and 3 LiDARs allowing cars to navigate-on-autopilot on city roads that had HD map coverage. In 2023, ADS 2.0 was introduced and first carried by AITO M5 that no longer relies on HD maps. Thanks to the implementation of RCR (road cognition & reasoning) on the software level, city NOA works all over China on structured roads with clear boundaries. Meanwhile, the sensor suite was downsized to 11 cameras, 3 mmWave radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors and 1 LiDAR.

The ADS 3.0 solution was launched this year to further improve driving experience by incorporating neutral networks in the perception and planning modules. It was implemented by the newest models such as Stelato S9 and AITO M9 and shortly made available to precedent models for upgrade.

From the 1st generation to ADS 3.0, Huawei has stuck to the sensor fusion approach with LiDARs. The company’s senior executive Richard Yu made it clear that LiDAR is a crucial part of their system for safety reasons, as the limitations of cameras would not be solved by algorithm. It wasn’t just a verbal statement because Huawei has upgraded its LiDAR technology with the all-new 192-channel product from the 92-channel model (reference post).

It is worth noting the vehicles equipped with ADS 3.0 are currently sold above 200,000 yuan, mostly above 250,000 yuan. Besides the premium cost on hardware, users need to pay to access city NOA and AVP features through monthly subscriptions or an upfront purchase (highway NOA is free by default). However, Huawei has its sights on the mass-market too. It introduced a basic-level intelligent driving solution called ADS SE with highway NOA and APA functions without using LiDARs. It was first carried by Deepal L07 pro version, a vehicle model sold for 166,900 yuan.

New-gen EV trio

Nio, Li Auto and Xpeng are often referred as the EV trio. Despite their slightly different market propositions, the trio waw the early adopter of many innovative technologies including LiDAR as well as pioneering EV manufacturing as startups on a regulated market.

Li Auto designs its vehicles for longer family trips with at least five seats and extra interior space. It currently has five vehicle models, each offering Pro, Max or Ultra editions. The intelligent driving system on Max or Ultra enables city NOA functions, which was built by internal team on two Orin-X chips with a sensor suite including one LiDAR. The system on Pro only supports highway NOA and was built by a supplier on a single Horizon J5 chip with fewer amounts of sensors not including LiDARs.

Xpeng centers its brand image around the use of high tech to attract Millennials, Gen Z and tech geeks in particular. It was one of the first to mass-produce vehicles with two LiDAR sensors back in 2021. Xpeng used to provide a Max edition on all its models with city NOA solution, which was built on two Orin-X chips with two LiDAR sensors. However, a new strategy might have been implemented starting with the P5 2024 model cancelling the Max edition, which means P5 doesn’t use LiDARs at all nor offers city NOA. Recently, it was confirmed for the upcoming P7+ model to adopt pure vision solutions by removing LiDARs but still using radars. Furthermore, Xpeng plans to upgrade existing models to pure vision in 2025.

Nio has long envisioned itself as a premium brand and strives for high standards from vehicle configuration to customer service. It has iterated all the models onto the NT2.0 platform, where the intelligent driving system is built on 4 Orin-X chips and stacked with 11 cameras (7 8MP cameras and 5 3MP cameras), 5 radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors and a 1550nm-wavelengthed LiDAR. In other words, all Nio cars come with the necessary hardware for city NOA but users have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access the software pack. This is different from Li Auto and Xpeng, with whom city NOA is available on selected vehicle editions while there is no additional cost to access it.

Paving the way for city NOA

It is only a matter of time before all cars on the road to become smart and then smarter, just like our mobile phones. A smart car can drive itself on highways and expressways with minimum driver’s input, which is no longer a hurdle technically. The focus has moved onto sophisticated city traffic scenarios, where the current solutions all rely on at least one LiDAR sensor.

In fact, premium new energy vehicles today are adopting city NOA features rapidly since cost isn’t the biggest concern, whereas affordable models are usually the mainstream choice for consumers in China and globally. OEMs and solution suppliers are racing to democratize the same experience to vehicles priced below 200,000 yuan, a segment that possesses abundant demand and growing market share.

There are two camps working on transferring high-level intelligent driving to lower price points. One is to go with pure vision by ditching LiDAR. Right now, only Xpeng is in this camp until Tesla FSD makes its way into China. The other camp sticks with sensor fusion hoping to optimize cost overall. There doesn’t have to be a single winner. In the foreseeable future, the automotive LiDAR market will stay at least on an upward curve.

Last but not least, the discussions above are from the demand perspective. I will probably do another post from the supply side.