Bringing new
evolutionary technology to market is no small feat.
Automotive OEMs are really looking for
a trusted partner to develop and scale this groundbreaking technology.
We have now signed several major commercial deals with the world class
leading automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Volvo
Cars, and SAIC.
Luminar is now in a position to scale
both its supply chain and manufacturing operations
and bring this product to the market at mass scale.
When you think about phases of production,
I have likened this to, I'll say, scaling Mount Everest.
And if you think about where we are right now,
it would be very similar to being at base camp.
You've already been on a significant part of the journey and made great progress
to get where you are.
Same token, there is a significant journey still ahead of you
and you can't take your eye off the ball.
The automotive production phases can be really subdivided into what
I would call four main categories, and they all relate to maturity.
You begin with what's referred to as "A samples".
And that normally means that you've got a product
that matches up with some of the functional expectations,
maybe most of them, but it's not ready for durability testing,
for example. All the way through the end, to the start of production.
And we are at a phase that's called "C sample".
And what that means is that the design, the majority
of the functions, satisfy the customer requirements and specifications
and we are in the middle of putting together all of the plans
and proving out the equipment
and the processes with a variety of automation vendors.
Prove that we can scale for the volumes that are necessary to achieve the
hundreds of thousands of units per year. Moving from the tech suppliers
to our automotive capable and automotive grade suppliers.
The wonderful thing about that is that we've brought
that forward with the ultimate de-risking of the iris launch.
The industry as a whole is going through an evolution
which includes both safety and autonomy.
Luminar's customers have realized that the foundational lidar
technology that we bring to the table, coupled with our proprietary
software, enables greater safety and functionality at the vehicle level.
And Luminar's strategy has always been to tightly integrate hardware
and software development to unleash the full potential of our lidar.
So it all starts with Iris and the core sensor software.
On top of that, we add a perception stack which gives us access
to objects, lane markings and other crucial elements of safe driving.
And on top of that, we put something that we call Sentinel,
which is our name for our automated driving stack, which
consists of proactive safety that you've seen at CES 2022.
And of Highway Comfort, which I'm going to show you right now.
The lidar allows us to adapt the scan pattern from frame to frame
which gives us the ability to basically center
all the resolution where we want it.
So as a result, we can pick out objects like lost cargo, like stripped tires
and so on, some of the smallest objects possible in the hybrid situation,
but also some of the most dangerous objects possible in a highway situation.
At distances that have never been possible in a serious product before.
What you see here on the screen
we call this Highway Comfort.
What it is, is a SAE level 2 functionality
that does lane centering and distance keeping.
So you see, somebody just cut into our lane.
Our vehicle noticed that, and adapted the speed accordingly.
If we were to come to a traffic jam, we would stop completely.
If the traffic jam were to start again, we would start again.
And also what we do is something we call proactive safety
which is an automated emergency braking and soon automated emergency steering stack
that takes road safety much beyond everything that has been possible.
or required by any lawmakers or new car assessment programs worldwide.
And it all comes together to form our vision to eradicate accidents
and to bring safety and comfort to all of the vehicles worldwide.