Tesla is Luminar’s largest lidar customer

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has done that said that lidar sensors are a ‘mainstay’ for autonomous vehicles. But his company has bought so many from Luminar that Tesla is now the lidar maker’s biggest customer.

Tesla accounted for “more than 10%” of Luminar’s revenue, or just over $2 million, in the first quarter of 2024, the lidar maker said revealed Tuesday in its first-quarter earnings report.

Luminar reported that revenue fell 5% from the fourth quarter of 2023, which was mainly attributed to “lower sensor sales to non-automotive customers.” That decline was “neutralized by sales of sensors to Tesla, our largest lidar customer in the first quarter.” Luminar also recorded a 45% year-over-year increase in sales.

Luminar published its results just a few days after announcing plans to cut its workforce by 20%, in a restructuring that will see it outsource much of the production of its lidar sensors in a bid to scale the business.

Tesla has been spotted using lidar and other sensors on some of its test vehicles, and it has Reportedly is already working with Luminar in 2021. Details of the deal were never disclosed and Luminar did not explain why it shared the information now. The new revelation comes just months before Tesla is expected to unveil a robotaxi on August 8.

Musk has long argued that relying on lidar to help autonomous cars navigate the world is a “fool’s errand.” He said at Tesla’s “Autonomy Day” event in 2019 that “anyone who relies on lidar is doomed!”

“[They are] expensive sensors that are not needed,” he said at the time. “It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive attachments. One appendix is ​​bad, but now that you have a whole bunch of them, it’s ridiculous, you’ll see.’

Of course, at that 2019 event, Musk also said that Tesla would launch a fleet of robotaxis within just one year. That never happened. Instead, Musk is still buying crutches.