FordSells Velodyne Stake, Likely To Use Argo Lidar For 2022 Automated Vehicle

Ford Motor Company

F
no longer owns any stake in automotive lidar pioneer Velodyne according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Velodyne. In August, 2016, Ford and Baidu

BIDU
each invested $150 million in Velodyne in the hope of commercializing lower-cost lidar for automated vehicles. As of September, 2020 after Velodyne Lidar went public, Ford held a 7.6% stake in the company but that has been completely divested and the days of Velodyne sensors on the automakers vehicles are likely numbered. 

Every generation of automated driving development vehicles used by Ford and its partner Argo AI have featured Velodyne lidar sensors on the roof including the current fourth-generation that debuted last fall. The new test vehicles based on the Escape hybrid used the Velodyne Alpha Prime for long-range sensing along with five short-range lidars from an as yet undisclosed vendor around the lower-perimeter of the vehicle. 

In addition to manufacturing prototype sensors for its customers at its in-house factory in California, Velodyne like most lidar vendors has been forming partnerships with major tier one automotive suppliers for volume-production of automotive grade parts. In Velodyne’s case, Sweden’s Veoneer was set to manufacture sensors which were expected to be for the Ford automated vehicle originally scheduled for launch in 2021, but now delayed until 2022. 

In its fourth-quarter 2020 earnings statement, Veoneer included the following statement. “Veoneer was notified by an AV customer of a project cancellation due to a change in their core Lidar technology. This decision is reflected in Veoneer’s current outlook, mid-term targets and order book.” This customer is believed to be Ford. 

Veoneer also stated “Additionally, we are revisiting our Lidar strategy as we see rapid changes in the core technology development and see several new opportunities in the future for Veoneer as a system integrator and industrialization partner for new Lidar startups.” This indicates that like many of its tier one competitors, it is hoping to partner with at least one and possibly multiple lidar vendors for mass production. 

“This was part of our long term capital investment strategy we invested in Velodyne, we made money off of the investment, and we sold the stock,” said a Ford spokesperson. “We’re still using the Velodyne lidar on all of the testing vehicles that we had on the road today but when it comes to future product or technology we don’t comment on that.”

Ford also owns a stake in Argo AI, the Pittsburgh based company that is developing the production automated driving system for its upcoming vehicles. In 2017, Argo acquired another startup, Princeton Lightwave for its lidar technology. 

“”Our in-house lidar development effort, formed upon the acquisition of Princeton Lightwave in 2017, is going very well,” said Argo communications director Alan Hall. “We will share more information about the progress at the appropriate time.”

It is now expected that the Ford AVs coming next year and the Volkswagen AVs in 2023 will utilize the Princeton Lightwave technology for at least the rooftop long-range lidar. For now at least Baidu still has a stake in Velodyne and continues to use its sensors. Velodyne has also announced several design wins for its lidar with other AV companies including Motional, Voyage and May Mobility.