Chinese company Hesai will double production as lidar sensor industry shakes up

Chinese lidar maker Hesai on Monday announced plans to double its production capacity from 2 million units to 4 million units this year, as it looks to corner the global market for laser-based sensors. That would be well above the 1 million unit mark that Hisae reaches in 2025.

Hesai’s push to grab more market share comes just one month after leading US lidar manufacturer Luminar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That company is not expected to continue operating once its bankruptcy plan is approved, although it is looking to sell its lidar business.

Hesai has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few years and is now listed on both the Nasdaq and Hong Kong stock exchanges. This is despite fighting an uphill battle against the US government, which has accused the company of working too closely with the Chinese military industry – a charge that Hisai has disputed.

At the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Hisay told reporters that she was able to double the production target due to “accelerating demand” in the automotive and robotics industries.

The company’s automotive efforts have been boosted by the Chinese auto market’s adoption of lidar sensors, which Hisay said are now in 25% of new electric vehicles sold in the country. It also claimed that many new cars in China are expected to integrate between three and six lidar sensors per car, “significantly expanding Hesai’s steerable market.” Hesai boasts 24 automotive customers, including a “major European” automaker, and said it has 4 million orders for its latest ATX lidar sensor.

The automotive industry has proven to be a volatile market for lidar sensors outside of China. That was one of the contributing factors to Luminar’s downfall, according to the company’s bankruptcy filings. While Luminar secured deals to integrate its lidar sensors into Volvo, Polestar and Mercedes-Benz vehicles, those plans fell apart. Volvo had at one point agreed to buy 1.1 million lidar sensors from Luminar, but delays in new vehicle programs and cost overruns led the Swedish automaker to back out of the deal. (Volvo ultimately purchased only about 10,000 sensors from Luminar.)

Robotics is not certain to be a successful market for lidar sensors, but some players besides Hisai see great promise. San Francisco-based Ouster, which acquired rival Velodyne in 2023 as the lidar industry begins to consolidate, said it believes robotics represents a $14 billion market opportunity. This includes not only humanoid robots, but also delivery robots and military applications.

At CES, Hesai is showing off a robotic lawn mower and a robotic dog that uses the company’s JT Series lidar sensor. The company has also hinted at its inclusion in humanoid robots as well. It has struck deals to provide lidar sensors to autonomous vehicle companies such as Pony AI, Motional, WeRide, and Baidu.

Hisai also boasted that it helped reduce the cost of lidar sensors by 99.5% in just eight years. This was also a contributing factor to Luminar’s downfall. “Pressure to cut costs due to lower price points of China-based competitors” has been regularly listed in company bankruptcy filings as the second most important factor explaining why the US company has had difficulty building a self-sustaining business.