According to the news on the official account of "Hesai Technology" on October 10, the company opened Columbus South China Operation Center in Guangzhou as the starting point of South China strategy.
Yao Peng, General Manager of Guangzhou Hesai Technology Co., Ltd., stated that it will accelerate its market layout in the Greater Bay Area, expand its business areas, and become an important part of Guangzhou's new energy vehicle and intelligent driving industry chain extension and supplementation as soon as possible. The South China Operations Center will mainly undertake tasks such as expanding new business, innovating customer organizations, and exploring operational models.
Founded in 2014, Hesai Technology (NASDAQ: HSAI) is headquartered in Shanghai and is a leading laser radar manufacturer in China. At present, its products are widely used in passenger cars, commercial vehicles, autonomous vehicle that support the Advanced Assisted Driving System (ADAS), as well as various intelligent robot applications such as unmanned distribution vehicles and AGVs. In February of this year, Hesai Technology was listed on the NASDAQ exchange in the United States.
Hesai Technology has many customers or partners from Guangdong, including Wenyuan Zhixing, Xiaoma Zhixing, AutoX, Yuanrong Qixing, etc. In April this year, Hesai Technology won another leading car company and announced a cooperation with GAC Group. The two sides will jointly create intelligent driving products in the field of automotive intelligence based on Hesai's next-generation new LiDAR products.
As of the end of the first half of the year, Hesai has established mass production partnerships with over 70 models from 19 domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers.
One of the backgrounds for the expansion and operation center of Hesai is that under the fierce competition in the industry, the company is facing a cliff like decline in market share. According to data from Gaishi Automotive Research Institute, in the first half of 2023, Hesai Technology will occupy half of the Chinese LiDAR market, with a share of 51.4%; By the first half of this year, the installed capacity was 116400 units, and the market share had dropped to 19.9%, ranking third.
One of Hesai Technology's strong competitors is Sagitar Juchuang (02498. HK) from Shenzhen. According to the Gaishi Automotive Research Institute, in the first half of the year, Sagitar Juchuang led the domestic laser radar installation volume, occupying 40.3% of the market share with an installation volume of 235500 units.
According to the latest announcement from Sagitar Juchuang, the company's total sales of LiDAR in the third quarter were approximately 138600 units, a year-on-year increase of 134.9%; As of the end of the third quarter, the total sales of LiDAR products were approximately 381900 units.
In order to break the deadlock, Hesai Technology has increased its bet on Robotaxi. In July, Hesai Technology announced that the sixth generation Baidu Apollo unmanned vehicle will be gradually launched on the market this year, and the main LiDAR on Baidu's sixth generation Apollo RT6 unmanned vehicle will be exclusively supplied by Hesai. This is the first large-scale application and deployment of ADAS semi-solid state LiDAR solution on Robotaxi in China.
Guangzhou is one of the fastest commercialized cities in the country, and car enterprises such as Wenyuan Zhixing, Apollo Go and Xiaoma Zhixing have all started the commercial charging of driverless taxis in the local area. This provides a policy advantage for Hesai to expand its market.
As early as 2019, the Hesai Pandar series was deployed in bulk in a Robotaxi fleet of over a hundred units in Wenyuan Zhixing. The fleet successfully launched China's first fully open and commercially operated Robotaxi service in Huangpu District, Guangzhou.
In August this year, the Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Automotive Industry (Public Exposure Draft) released by the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology proposed that by 2027, in terms of intelligent connected vehicles, the proportion of new autonomous vehicle of L2 (inclusive) and above in Guangzhou will exceed 80%, the proportion of new vehicles of L3 (inclusive) and above will exceed 20%, and 10000 vehicles will be put into commercial operation of autonomous driving. The whole city will open up commercial operation of autonomous driving.
On the one hand, the ADAS LiDAR equipped on Robotaxi has a higher unit price, approaching $500 per unit, which can alleviate the problem of "selling thanks to more" among LiDAR manufacturers in the price war.
On the other hand, Robotaxi has a higher demand for the number of laser radars. For example, Baidu's sixth generation unmanned vehicle Apollo RT6 is equipped with 8 laser radars, Xiaoma Zhixing's sixth generation, Wenyuan Zhixing SensorSuite 5.0, Didi's Gemini solution are equipped with 7 laser radars, and Waymo and General Motors' Cruise are both equipped with 5 laser radars.
It is worth mentioning that the Hesai South China Operations Center has settled in Heli Tiande Plaza, Tianhe District, Guangzhou. Heli Tiande Square is an important landmark of Guangzhou's low altitude economic routes. On March 8th, Xiaopeng Huitian's "Traveler X2" flying car completed a low altitude flight in the "Tiande Square Guangzhou Tower" area of Guangzhou CBD; On September 13th, Yihang Intelligent EH216-S completed the flight of the "Guangzhou Tower Haixinsha Tiande Square" tourist route.
Heli Intelligence is the operator of the above-mentioned routes. Zhang Yi, President of Heli Intelligent Company, told Interface News that Hesai Technology has formed a cooperative relationship with the group, but it is not a low altitude economic sector. According to his understanding, the models operated by the company have not yet used laser radar. "For eVTOL, laser radar is not a necessary component now, and host manufacturers may have different applications based on their respective technical routes
Zhao Deli, founder of Xiaopeng Huitian, also told Interface News that the company's flying cars use binocular cameras instead of LiDAR.
Zhang Yi believes that there is a possibility of using LiDAR in eVTOL in the future, "but it will take time. Currently, LiDAR is in the early stages of the industry and is not yet a necessity
Regarding the specific business development, role positioning, and considerations for landing in Guangzhou of Hesai South China Application Center, Interface News has inquired with Hesai Technology. As of the time of publication, no response has been received.