Robot, detonate the lidar.

While lidar is still competing with the "pure vision route" in the automotive field, a particular sector has suddenly skyrocketed the demand for it.

On August 15th, Hesai Technology (HSAI) announced two pieces of news. Firstly, it released its unaudited financial data for the second quarter of 2025. The most notable highlight was that the net profit for that quarter exceeded 44 million yuan, far surpassing the target of turning profitable on a GAAP basis. Throughout the entire second quarter, Hesai achieved a revenue of 710 million yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of over 50%.

It's worth highlighting that in the second quarter, the number of Hesai's product deliveries in the robotics field reached 48,531 units, a year-on-year increase of 743.6%.

This more-than-sevenfold growth is extremely remarkable. Not only lidar but also the stocks related to the special engineering plastic PEEK used in robotics, such as those of Zhongyan Co., Ltd., Kingfa Science & Technology Co., Ltd., and Wote Co., Ltd., have been surging in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets recently. It can be said that this new trillion-dollar market has ignited all-round enthusiasm.

01

Becoming the "Standard Configuration" in the Main Battlefield

Let's first talk about the main battlefield of lidar. By transforming from a functional component to a safety component, lidar has found its proper positioning. As Li Yifan, the co-founder and CEO of Hesai, said, "Lidar is becoming a safety standard for intelligent vehicles."

It can be said that lidar has finally made a breakthrough in the automotive field. According to data from the Gasgoo Auto Research Institute, in June, the penetration rate of lidar in new energy passenger vehicles reached 17% and has remained above 16% for three consecutive months.

From less than 5% in 2022 to nearly one-fifth of new vehicles now being standardly equipped with lidar, the "encirclement and suppression" of lidar by the pure vision route has failed. Consumers' recognition of its value as an "invisible airbag" is driving lidar towards becoming a necessity.

Looking at Hesai's data, in the second quarter, the total number of Hesai's lidar deliveries reached 352,095 units, a year-on-year increase of 306.9%. Among them, the number of ADAS product deliveries was 303,564 units, a year-on-year increase of 275.8%. That is to say, although the growth rate is not as remarkable as that of lidar for robotics, it is still much better than last year's situation.

Li Yifan, the co-founder and CEO of Hesai, attributed this result to "the continuous strong customer demand and the significant improvement of our operational efficiency." In this situation, in the first half of this year, the total number of Hesai's lidar deliveries reached 547,913 units, a year-on-year increase of 276.2%, which has already exceeded the total for the whole year of 2024.

Moreover, Hesai also announced that its semi-solid-state lidar ATX has won a mass production order from a joint-venture brand under Toyota Motor and will start mass production in 2026. Additionally, "this quarter and recently, we have won orders for 20 models from 9 leading automakers, which are planned to be delivered gradually from 2025 to 2026."

Speaking of ATX, it is the latest product launched by Hesai Technology. It has an ultra-long ranging ability of 200 meters at a 10% reflectivity, a high-definition deployment of up to 256 lines, and a best angular resolution of up to 0.1°×0.1°, enabling it to accurately detect distant obstacles. ATX is also equipped with Hesai's self-developed waveform decoding engine IPE, which can filter out more than 99.9% of environmental noise, ensuring stable all-weather perception.

Actually, it's not just Hesai Technology. Other lidar companies such as RoboSense, Huawei, and Tudatong are also doing well. According to a report from the Gasgoo Auto Research Institute, the domestic installation volume of lidar exceeded 1.5 million units for the first time in 2024, a year-on-year surge of 179.7%. In the first half of 2025, it reached 1.002 million units, a year-on-year increase of 71%, and it is expected to reach 2.5 million units for the whole year.

The safety value of lidar is the fundamental reason for its "comeback." After all, the pure vision route has insoluble bugs. Although companies like Tesla and XPeng have been hyping it up, numerous accidents have proven that for safety, pure vision is ultimately a false proposition. The multi-sensor fusion route will eventually prevail.

Therefore, with the continuous decline in cost, the "spring" of lidar has finally arrived. For example, in addition to being installed in Xiaomi's YU7, Hesai Technology has also reached a platform-level cooperation with Xiaomi for multiple models in 2026, which will further consolidate the "standard configuration" status of lidar in all of Xiaomi's models.

Moreover, following RoboSense, Hesai Technology has also won an order for a new model from a joint-venture brand under Toyota Motor, which is also a strong signal. This is not only a cooperation with the world's top-selling automaker but also indicates that lidar has truly gained a certain qualification and recognition.

Of course, judging from the current industry situation, only RoboSense and Hesai Technology are the leading players that are truly recognized by multiple automakers and offer cost-effective products. This is also the confidence for them to stand out from the competition.

In addition, the automotive lidar has also obtained its first national standard. In April this year, the "National Standard for Automotive Lidar GB/T 45500 - 2025" was officially released and implemented. This standard was jointly formulated by Hesai and more than 50 partners, specifying the performance, reliability requirements, and test methods for automotive lidar, thus filling a gap in the industry.

Of course, the fundamental reason for all this is the rapid decline in the cost of lidar. As Li Yifan, the CEO of Hesai, said, Hesai has spent eight years reducing the cost of lidar by 99.5%, enabling automakers and consumers to truly "afford" it. This is also the fundamental reason for lidar's breakthrough.

02

Robotics: The Second Growth Engine

With the advent of the AI era, lidar, as a fundamental tool for AI to perceive the physical world, is becoming a technological necessity in the three fields of ADAS, robotics, and digital twin. As I mentioned in "Lidar: Opening a New Door," "Everything is new."

Speaking specifically about the robotics field, currently, the area where lidar is making the most significant progress is in lawn mowing robots. In the future, its application will also expand to humanoid robots and quadruped robots.

In this field, Hesai's lidar shipments in the first half of 2025 ranked first in China. Moreover, the cumulative number of deliveries of Hesai's JT series lidar has exceeded 100,000 units, setting the fastest mass production record in the industry. Its development speed is truly astonishing.

This also partially confirms the statement of Qiu Chunchao, the CEO of RoboSense, at the China EV100 Forum (2025): "The robotics market is ten times larger than the automotive market and is definitely worth striving for."

According to statistical data from Beroe Consulting, the global market size of robotic lawn mowers was 2.053 billion US dollars in 2024. It is expected that the compound annual growth rate of this market will be 12.11% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2029, indicating quite good growth potential.

Relevant market research also predicts that the sales volume of lawn mowing robots will exceed 1 million units in 2025 (with a penetration rate of less than 5%). Additionally, Ninebot Inc. predicted in its annual report that the market size of lawn mowing robots will exceed 15.9 billion US dollars by 2030. This shows that there is still huge growth potential for lawn mowing robots in the future.

In terms of the development process, currently, RTK + visual SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) is the mainstream navigation and positioning technology for lawn mowing robots, especially excelling in improving positioning accuracy and environmental adaptability. However, its weaknesses are also very obvious. When encountering obstacles such as trees, houses, and walls, the satellite signal is prone to being lost or drifting, resulting in positioning failure.

Therefore, with the entry of lidar, the landscape of lawn mowing robots has begun to change. Since 2024, the battle for boundaryless lawn mowing robots has swept across European and American gardens. Due to the low penetration rate and recent technological breakthroughs, "the lawn mowers in 2024 are like the sweeping robots in 2016."

Here is a brief introduction. RTK (Real-time kinematic) means that the system achieves positioning by receiving signals from GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) and calculating the device's coordinates in real-time (enabling centimeter-level positioning). In open and unobstructed lawn areas, it can stably provide global coordinates and quickly determine the robot's position in the "world coordinate system."

Of course, in terms of performance, the requirements for lidar used in robots vary significantly due to different application scenarios. For example, a larger FOV range is prioritized, and higher resolution is required. Compared with automotive applications, long-range ranging ability is not as crucial. At the same time, due to the smaller size of robots, lidar with a smaller volume and higher integration is needed.

In terms of China's exports, in 2024, the export value of Chinese lawn mowing robots was 3.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 85%. Among them, Europe accounted for 65% of the market share. It is expected that the export value will reach 6 billion yuan this year, a year-on-year increase of 70%, as the North American market has also been opened up. From this perspective, the future of lidar is limitless.

In addition to lawn mowing robots, AI-driven humanoid robots and quadruped robots have also started to boom. With breakthroughs in the structure and intelligence of robots, the application of lidar in humanoid and quadruped robots has also accelerated.

In a nutshell, different from lawn mowing robots, the physical environments of humanoid and quadruped robots are more complex and changeable. Therefore, "lidar + depth camera" fusion solutions have become the mainstream in China.

In this regard, the humanoid robots of Unitree Robotics, Zhipu AI, Xingdong Jiyuan, and Magic Atom are all equipped with one 3D lidar, and Unitree Robotics' robotic dogs are equipped with Hesai Technology's XT series lidar.

Through this simple introduction and analysis, we can understand that the constraints on the market size of lidar have been lifted, and robotics has triggered a boom in lidar. Coupled with the release of the automotive market, it's now time for each lidar company to showcase their skills and ride the waves in this blue ocean with their own technologies and specialties.

This article is from the WeChat official account "C Dimension." The author is Wang Xiaoxi. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.