Hesai Group, together with its subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in the development, manufacture and sales of 3-dimensional light detection and ranging solutions, or LiDAR.
Hesai Technology Co., Ltd. (the company’s subsidiary), together with its subsidiaries in China, the U.S. and elsewhere, or Hesai Technology, is the global leader in three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR) solutions. Its LiDAR products enable a broad spectrum of applications across (i) passenger or commercial v...
Hesai Group, together with its subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in the development, manufacture and sales of 3-dimensional light detection and ranging solutions, or LiDAR.
Hesai Technology Co., Ltd. (the company’s subsidiary), together with its subsidiaries in China, the U.S. and elsewhere, or Hesai Technology, is the global leader in three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR) solutions. Its LiDAR products enable a broad spectrum of applications across (i) passenger or commercial vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems, or ADAS, (ii) autonomous vehicle fleets providing passenger and freight mobility services, or Autonomous Mobility, and (iii) other applications such as last-mile delivery robots, street sweeping robots, and logistics robots in restricted areas, or Robotics.
Hesai Technology is the most commercially successful LiDAR company globally. Hesai Technology designs and manufactures LiDARs to push limits across each of the three elements, while striking the optimal balance for different applications and industries, which has led to its continued success.
Vertical Integration Technology. Hesai Technology has designed its proprietary vertical integration technology to integrate the functionality of hundreds of discrete components and greatly simplify the traditional TX/RX architecture, delivering a system that offers greater Performance, higher Quality and consistency at lower Cost. These enable Hesai Technology to develop and manufacture LiDAR products that can meet the various needs of its customers. Its AT128, a breakthrough LiDAR product for the ADAS market, for example, is designed based on vertical integration technology and is able to deliver superior performance at high precision, lower power consumption per channel, in a smaller form factor and at a lower cost compared to legacy LiDAR. Hesai Technology will continue to upgrade its vertical integration technology onwards and leverage the existing advanced manufacturing processes in the semiconductor supply chain to deliver better price-to-performance.
In-House Manufacturing. Hesai Technology’s proprietary manufacturing process constitutes another of its major advantages and has contributed to its success to date. Hesai Technology has integrated its LiDAR design and manufacturing into an indivisible and seamless process, enabling it to deliver automotive grade products of superior Quality. As the LiDAR industry continues to evolve quickly, its in-house highly automated and integrated manufacturing capabilities provide instant trial feedback for the company to iterate its LiDAR design and manufacturing process, thereby enabling rapid product development and fast iteration cycles. Moreover, in-house manufacturing allows Hesai Technology to better control product quality, ensure product consistency, improve manufacturing efficiency, and safeguard manufacturing process know-how at an affordable cost. The know-how then further strengthens its in-house manufacturing capabilities and helps establish a virtuous cycle to solidify its advantages. Hesai Technology has built multiple manufacturing facilities to manufacture its products in-house for automotive OEMs. For more information on its manufacturing facilities, see ‘— Manufacturing Process and Supply Chain.’
Hesai Technology’s LiDAR solutions and products have been thoroughly tested and validated by its customers’ deployments in large volumes. It has accumulatively served over 1,000 customers in the ADAS, Autonomous Mobility and Robotics markets through design wins or product shipment, covering over 40 countries and regions as of December 31, 2023.
Many of the company’s customers and potential customers are large, multinational corporations. Although the company is a primarily China-based company, many of the company’s major customers and suppliers are located in the United States and other countries outside of China.
Solutions and Products
Based on Hesai Technology’s proprietary technology, it has developed and produced a full range of LiDAR products to suit the various needs of its customers. Its LiDAR products cater to short-, medium-, and long-range applications, with industry-leading detection range, resolution, interference rejection technology, and reliability. In response to the company’s commodity classification requests, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the U.S. Department of Commerce has classified all LiDAR product families that Hesai Technology designs and manufactures as EAR99 under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Products classified as EAR99 generally do not require an export license and are not specially designed for military use.
Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS)
Automobile manufacturers have begun to integrate LiDARs into ADAS to better visualize the changing environments encountered by their vehicles. LiDARs for ADAS share certain requirements with LiDARs for the Autonomous Mobility markets, such as detection range and resolution. At the same time, LiDARs for ADAS normally prefer forward-facing configurations for adaptive cruising and traffic assist functions. In addition, automobile manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers require LiDARs with proper form factors to be embedded into their vehicles, in addition to automotive grade reliability and robustness.
Hesai Technology’s AT series, FT series and ET series are its breakthrough products for the ADAS market.
AT128. Carrying the proprietary vertical integration technology, AT128 features 128 channels, great detection range from 0.5 meters to 200 meters, a robust scanning mirror beam steering system providing a horizontal field of view of 120°, a resolution at 1,536,000 points per second, and interference rejection technology. Hesai Technology launched AT512, the new flagship ultra long-range LiDAR product, in January 2024. AT512 boasts industry-record performance across every key metric, including a detection range of over 300 meters at 10% reflectivity and image quality with a point rate of 12.3 million points per second.
ET25. ET25 is an ultra-thin long-range LiDAR product that is designed to be installed on the inner side of windshield, featuring a height of merely 25 millimeters to accommodate an aesthetically pleasing vehicle outlook. The company expects ET25 to carry Hesai Technology’s new generation of TX/RX system, has a power consumption of less than 12 watts and features low acoustic design, thereby delivering a comfortable experience to the driver and passengers.
FT120. FT120, a fully solid-state LiDAR product designed for blind spot detection, carries the upgraded vertical integration technology and features a wide vertical field view of 75°, a compact size of 75 (H)×68 (W)×90 (D) millimeters, and interference rejection technology.
Autonomous Mobility
LiDAR is essential to self-driving cars in the Autonomous Mobility industry, as it is one of the most reliable ways of identifying distances and shapes of objects. In contrast to cameras that require deep learning algorithms to detect objects and determine their distances to vehicles, which may be unreliable, LiDAR can measure distances to objects directly by sending and receiving laser pulses. LiDARs sense and construct a three-dimensional view of the surrounding environment in real time, through measuring millions of points per second. The output is called a point cloud. Self-driving cars analyze the point clouds to accurately perceive the surroundings and safely navigate themselves. The ability to identify objects and gauge their distance is a key benefit of using LiDAR, and LiDAR products with a high level of accuracy and reliability can greatly improve safety.
Hesai Technology’s LiDAR product lines for the Autonomous Mobility industry primarily include the Pandar series and the QT series. Its customers generally purchase both LiDAR products for their Autonomous Mobility applications.
Pandar128. Designed for automotive volume production, Pandar128 offers an ideal solution for Autonomous Mobility applications. The 128-channel 360-degree surrounding view LiDAR features unrivaled detection range and point density, enabling superb perception over an extended range and provide Autonomous Mobility systems with longer reaction time that is critical for safe operation at medium-to-high driving speeds. Pandar128 also offers a higher level of ingress protection, helping ensure reliability in all weather conditions. Despite doubling the number of channels of its predecessor, Pandar64, Pandar128 retains a similar compact form factor, enabling seamless integration into a vehicle’s exterior for a more aesthetic configuration.
QT128. The wide field-of-view QT128, an upgraded model of QT64, is a cutting-edge answer to blind spot detection. It features a wide vertical field of view of 105.2°, which is ideal for covering vehicle blind spots. It also features superior short-range performance to detect objects as near as 0.1 meters at 10% reflectivity, and an optimized 0.4° finest vertical resolution, as well as Hesai Technology’s interference rejection technology.
Robotics
Hesai Technology’s customers in the Robotics market install LiDARs on small unmanned vehicles for autonomous navigation, collision avoidance, and mapping to provide services such as last-mile delivery and street sweeping. Its LiDAR products empower participants in the Robotics market by providing superior perception solutions.
The XT series is Hesai Technology’s product line for the Robotics market. Launched in October 2020, the 32-channel mid-range XT32 is its first product with vertical integration. The XT series is a cost-effective and power-efficient solution designed for multiple applications, including automated warehousing, logistics, robotics, surveying, mapping, and low-to-medium-speed autonomous driving. For these scenarios, sensors do not require ultra-high resolution and ultra-long range. Rather, they require a careful balance between Performance, Quality, and Cost. The XT series was developed to address these specific industrial needs.
Gas Sensors
In addition to LiDAR products, Hesai Technology offers gas sensors to remotely detect methane leaks. These feature high gas detection sensitivity with configurable detection frequency and support real-time data and visual reports through the corresponding mobile app. It also offers oxygen sensors for high-end medical ventilators using similar technologies.
LiDAR Technology
Hesai Technology’s core LiDAR technologies include its vertical integration technology, system-level know-how, and automotive grade productization.
Vertical Integration Technology
LiDARs are highly sophisticated instruments, consisting of TX/RX system, or the laser transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) system, signal processing system, beam steering system, optics, mechanical structures, circuits, and firmware, among others. Beam steering refers to the scanning of the laser beam, which changes the emission directions of the laser beam in a LiDAR system. The TX/RX system is the foundation for Hesai Technology’s LiDAR products as they determine the key LiDAR specifications such as detection range, precision, and point cloud density, among others. The signal processing system receives the incoming signals and creates an object model. The quality and performance of the signal processing system have an impact on LiDAR’s reliability and applicability, among others. Hesai Technology has designed its proprietary vertical integration technology to integrate the functionality of hundreds of discrete components and greatly simplify the traditional TX/RX architecture while lowering the cost. Its vertical integration technology has several key advantages: (i) maximized performance achieved with application customization, reduced power consumption, and optimized signal processing tunning; (ii) enhanced quality as the high level of integration of components and simplified manufacturing process can improve consistency; and (iii) optimized cost as Hesai Technology, through vertical integration, replaces hundreds of discrete off-the-shelf components for manufacturing efficiency and leverage the supply chain to enhance price-to-performance. Leveraging its strength in designing TX/RX systems that can integrate hundreds of addressable channels, Hesai Technology’s LiDAR transmits lasers from each channel sequentially to form a one-dimensional solid-state electronic scanning in the vertical direction. Units with an electronic scanning mechanism that does not have any moving parts are used for scanning in vertical direction in its LiDARs and can offer superior reliabilities at high scanning frequency. Hesai Technology combines different electronic systems with its different steering systems for different LiDARs to satisfy different applications. For its directional LiDAR (the AT series), it keeps the TX/RX system static and use a scanning polygon to scan the beam in the horizontal direction. As self-driving cars generally operate in complicated environments with stringent sensing requirements in all horizontal directions, Hesai Technology mainly uses 360-degree surrounding rotation systems in its LiDAR products designed for the Autonomous Mobility markets (the Pandar and the QT series).
System-level Know-how
A LiDAR is a complex system that incorporates many disciplines, such as optics, electronics, mechanical structure, and software, among others. Hesai Technology’s interdisciplinary team of engineers, consisting of experts in various areas, have designed and optimized its LiDAR products toward their physical limit through fundamental analysis and extensive experiments. During its years of development of LiDAR products, Hesai Technology has overcome many challenges and has accumulated a broad spectrum of know-how for LiDARs, including laser channel crosstalk reduction, point cloud interference rejection, and LiDAR performance consistency across the full LiDAR operating environment, among others.
Hesai Technology’s in-depth system-level know-how supports the development of rich product offerings and the continuous innovation of its next generation LiDARs. It summarizes the know-how that it accumulates from each LiDAR development project, such as the AT series, the Pandar series, the QT series, and the XT series, into design rules and applies them to other projects. Hesai Technology has also created common design and simulation platforms across different LiDAR design projects, such as ranging capability design model with different transmission and receiving system parameters, and common software and field-programmable gate array programs across different LiDAR designs, among others. This accumulation of know-how helps maximize the efficiency in designing its next generation products.
Automotive Grade Productization
Since 2017, Hesai Technology has been working with global OEMs on LiDAR designs that can meet automotive grade requirements, including, but not limited to, viability under a wide range of working conditions, high reliability, long service life, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), functional safety, and cybersecurity. Its LiDAR products have been running in volume on customers’ vehicle fleets across the globe. As the foundation of its automotive design, Hesai Technology makes sure that its LiDAR components fulfill automotive grade requirements. It designs and tests its proprietary vertical integration technology under automotive standards. For other components that it sources from its suppliers, Hesai Technology chooses automotive grade counterparts as long as they are available. During the product and process design phase, Hesai Technology uses tools such as design failure mode and effect analysis and process failure mode and effect analysis to ensure its design is robust. Throughout the years of collaboration with global OEMs, Hesai Technology has established a comprehensive set of automotive grade design verification tests, whose parameters and standards are approved by its OEM customers as sufficient to ensure the reliability of its LiDARs during automotive usage. These tests include, for example, vibration with thermal cycling, mechanical shock, high temperature degradation, humid heat cyclic, salt spray and Xenon lamp aging test. Hesai Technology also established a test center with specialized equipment to conduct these tests in-house. The rigorous test standards, along with its testing capabilities, ensure that the LiDARs it designs and manufactures can be verified against the high standards. Hesai Technology has successfully acquired essential certifications crucial for automotive grade design, including ASPICE CL2, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001, ISO 14001, and IATF 16949. For functional safety and cybersecurity, it also works closely with its OEM customers to ensure that its delivery meets their requirements. Hesai Technology also holds certifications from SGS, a globally renowned third-party certification entity, as the first achiever of ISO 26262 ASIL-B functional safety product certification in the LiDAR sector. Additionally, Hesai Technology has garnered recognition as the first in the LiDAR sector to receive ISO/ Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 21434 cybersecurity product certification from TÜV Rheinland, a leading independent technical testing organization in Germany. With a strong focus on the dedication to global automotive information security standards for LiDAR, Hesai Technology has also received ISO 27001 and TISAX AL3 certifications.
Manufacturing Process and Supply Chain
Hesai Technology’s LiDAR products are assembled in its own manufacturing facilities from a variety of raw materials and components, some of which, including mechanical parts, optical components, and electrical parts, are procured from trusted third-party suppliers. Its in-house manufacturing and testing capabilities and strict quality control measures enable it to ensure the high performance and reliability of its products.
Manufacturing Facilities
Hesai Technology owns and operates its manufacturing facilities to produce and assemble its LiDAR products. Hertz Center, its main manufacturing facility, is located in Hangzhou and commenced mass production in September 2023. To further elevate its manufacturing capacity to meet the growing market demand for its LiDAR products, Hesai Technology is expanding Hertz Center to accommodate more production lines. Furthermore, prior to the completion of Hertz Center, its Jiading factory in Shanghai has been manufacturing LiDAR products in volume to fulfill customer orders in a timely manner since 2018. To further enhance the cost-efficiency of its production, Hesai Technology expects to transfer some of the production lines in Jiading factory to Hertz Center in 2024.
In addition, Maxwell Center, Hesai Technology’s new research and development and intelligent manufacturing center in Jiading, Shanghai, the hub of OEMs and tier-1 suppliers in China, commenced trial operation in December 2023. Maxwell Center is dedicated to new product design, testing and calibration. Maxwell Center is preparing to manufacture FT120 LiDAR.
Hesai Technology has invested significant time in streamlining and automating its production process. Its manufacturing team, supported by its research and development team and supply chain team, systematically optimizes its production process by designing automated assembly and testing processes. For example, Hesai Technology’s automated placement machine helps ensure the alignment accuracy of the laser beams on its LiDAR by placing laser transmitters and receivers on circuit boards with micrometer accuracy. LiDARs assembled on its manufacturing line go through its automated testing stations, which run its own proprietary software to verify the LiDAR’s ranging capability, distance measurement accuracy and precision, and reflectivity measurement capability, among others. These automated assembly and testing processes ensure not only good quality control, but also great production efficiency and the ability to scale. Hesai Technology regularly monitors and upgrades its production machinery and equipment with an aim to maximizing production efficiency. All assembly and test data are uploaded to its manufacturing execution system for monitoring, which can be traced back for over 15 years.
The company is also dedicated to reducing the environmental impact and ensuring safety throughout the production process. The company implements various environmental protection measures, including installation of cotton filters, cartridge dust collectors, and activated carbon adsorption devices to appropriately collect and dispose of manufacturing waste. The company works with qualified third-party waste disposal service providers for other waste, including waste glue, waste alcohol, waste filter cotton, waste activated carbon and waste packaging barrels.
Supply of Raw Materials and Components
The company generally has two kinds of procurement needs, one is from the company’s product teams based on their respective production planning, and the other is for the company’s strategic reserves in the future. The company has a dedicated team to procure components and raw materials to meet specific requirements of the company’s LiDAR products. The main raw materials used in the production of the company’s LiDAR products include mechanical parts, fasteners, packaging materials and consumables, and the key components used in the production of the company’s LiDAR products include lasers, receivers and chips. The raw materials and key components of the company’s LiDAR products are generally available from multiple suppliers in China and overseas with varying costs. Although most raw materials and key components essential to the company’s products are generally available from multiple sources, a few components, such as automotive grade chips, may at times be subject to industry-wide shortage, significant pricing fluctuations and long supply cycles.
The company seeks to work with key material and component suppliers directly to foster long-term and in-depth cooperation. The company enters into framework agreements with some of its suppliers for the company’s key raw materials and components, such as lasers and receivers. The framework agreements typically have a term of 12 months.
Logistics and Warehouse
The company mainly relies on qualified third-party logistics service providers for the transportation of equipment, supply and the company’s products. The company leased its warehouse in Shanghai, China, which is within the company’s leased production plants, to store its LiDAR products after they roll off the product line. Products that have passed quality inspections are delivered to the warehouse, where the company implements strict inventory management and control measures, and ultimately ships to locations specified by the company’s customers.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2023, the company had 406 patents granted and 589 pending patent applications in China, and 58 patents granted and 422 pending patent applications in other jurisdictions, such as the United States and Europe. The company’s patents cover its key technologies, including LiDAR technologies and applications, vertical integration technologies, and laser-based gas sensor technologies.
As of December 31, 2023, the company also had 104 registered trademarks, including ‘Hesai’, in China and overseas countries, and copyrights to 15 software programs in China developed by the company relating to various aspects of its operations, and registered domain names, including hesaitech.com.
Business Development
The company has a dedicated business development team in each of the business areas in charge of the marketing of the company’s LiDAR products to prospective customers. As an integral part of the company’s marketing strategy, the company attends large technology conferences and industry expositions to showcase the company’s products, solutions, and the company’s technology. The company also focuses its marketing efforts on generating word-of-mouth referrals and creating content for marketing on media platforms with the intention of increasing its product exposure and building the company’s reputation. The company’s marketing content includes high-quality articles and videos developed in-house, which elaborate on the company’s product specifications and technologies. The combination of the company’s high-quality content and the optimization of its marketing channels, in addition to the company’s digitalized direct sales system, form a virtuous cycle from content marketing to sales leads, which enables the company to achieve continued brand exposure and attract high-quality potential customers at relatively low marketing spending.
The company sells its LiDAR products through direct sales, primarily offline, and indirect distribution channels, such as regional distributors and system integrators. The company’s website showcases its products for potential customers with insightful product descriptions and reaches the company’s customers globally. The company has a dedicated team of salespersons, divided by regions including China, the Asia Pacific, the Americas, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or EMEA, to pursue and maintain relationships with established regional distributors to tap into offline consumer markets. Sales of the company’s products will be enhanced by knowledgeable salespersons who can convey the value of its revolutionary technologies and demonstrate the company’s products’ high performance. The company promotes its products together with its regional distributors through promotional and branding activities, such as attending industry trade shows and making speeches at conferences.
Research and Development
For the year ended December 31, 2023, the company's research and development expenses were RMB790.5 million (U.S.$111.3 million).
History
Hesai Group was founded in 2014. The company was incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands in 2021.
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