China’s Hesai will double production as lidar sensor industry shakes out

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

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

Hesai has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years and is now listed on both the Nasdaq and the Hong Kong stock exchanges. That’s despite fighting an uphill battle against the U.S. government, which has accused the company of working closely with China’s military industry — a charge that Hesai has challenged.

At the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Hesai told reporters it was able to double the production target because of “accelerating demand” in the automotive and robotics industries.

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

Automotive has proved to be a fickle market for lidar sensors outside of China. That was one of the contributing factors to Luminar’s downfall, according to the company’s own bankruptcy filings. While Luminar secured deals to integrate its lidar sensors on 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 to its new vehicle programs and cost overruns caused the Swedish automaker to back out of the deal. (Volvo ultimately only purchased around 10,000 sensors from Luminar.)

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

At CES, Hesai is showcasing a robotic lawnmower and a robotic dog that use the company’s JT series lidar sensor. The company also hinted at its inclusion in humanoid robots as well. It has struck deals to provide lidar sensors to autonomous vehicle companies like Pony AI, Motional, WeRide, and Baidu.

Hesai also boasted it has helped drive down the cost of lidar sensors by 99.5% in just eight years. That, too, was a contributing factor to Luminar’s downfall; “pressure to reduce costs due to lower price points of China-based competitors” has been regularly listed in the company’s bankruptcy filings as the second-most important factor that explains why the U.S. company found it so hard to build up a self-sustaining business.