Opinion
Shares of autonomous driving tech company Luminar surge on Mercedes-Benz deal
Austin Russell, Luminar founder and CEO, with Markus Schäfer, Mercedes-Benz AG chief expertise officer at Mercedes-Benz’ Sindelfingen, Germany plant.
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz stated Thursday it plans to make use of lidar expertise from Luminar in its subsequent era of automobiles, driving shares of the start-up to extend by as a lot as 25% throughout intraday buying and selling Thursday.
As a part of the settlement, the German automaker is anticipated to accumulate as much as 1.5 million shares of Luminar over time as milestones are met. The businesses additionally agreed to share information.
Luminar is getting ready for serial manufacturing of its lidar expertise later this yr. The businesses declined to say when Mercedes-Benz, a unit of Daimler, plans to start utilizing the lidar expertise in its automobiles, however Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell stated it might be in “the not too distant future.”
Luminar CEO and founder Austin Russell discusses how the corporate’s Iris lidar system is ready to “see” its environment. It shows them in colourful traces representing how far the objects are from the automobile.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
“It’s an enormous deal for Luminar,” he stated throughout a web-based interview from Germany. “It’s one other main OEM [original equipment manufacturer] announcement and a serious industrial win for us.”
Luminar final yr introduced Volvo could be the primary automaker to supply Luminar’s lidar expertise as commonplace on a brand new electrical flagship SUV that’s scheduled to be unveiled this yr. Russell described the take care of Mercedes-Benz as “comparable in lots of respects” to Luminar’s take care of Volvo.
Lidars, or mild detection and ranging techniques, can sense environment and assist vehicles keep away from obstacles. They use mild to create high-resolution photos that present a extra correct view of the world than cameras or radar alone.
Luminar’s inventory closed Thursday at $15 a share, up 11.5%. Shares of Luminar, which went public by a SPAC deal in December 2020, are down 11.3% this month. Its market cap is $5.4 billion.
