Tesla CEO Elon Musk said lidar sensors are a “crutch” for autonomous vehicles. But his company has bought so many from Luminar that Tesla is now the lidar maker’s main customer.
Tesla accounted for “more than 10%” of Luminar’s revenue in the first quarter of 2024, or just over $2 million, the lidar maker revealed in its first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday.
Luminar reported that its revenue fell 5% to $20.9 million from the fourth quarter of 2023, which it attributed primarily to “declining sensor sales to non-automotive customers.” This decline was “offset by sensor sales to Tesla, which was our largest lidar customer in the first quarter.” Luminar also noted a 45% year-over-year increase in revenue.
Luminar released its results just days after announcing plans to reduce its workforce by 20%, as part of a restructuring that will see it outsource much of the production of its lidar sensors in a bid to grow its business.
Tesla has been spotted using lidar and other sensors on some of its test vehicles and was reportedly partnering with Luminar as early as 2021. Details of the deal were never disclosed and Luminar is not did not explain why he was sharing the information now. The new disclosure comes just months before Tesla unveils a robo-taxi on August 8.
Musk has long argued that relying on lidar to help self-driving cars navigate the world is a “foolish task.” He said at Tesla’s 2019 Autonomy Day event that “anyone who relies on lidar is doomed!” »
“(These are) expensive and unnecessary sensors,” he said at the time. “It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive annexes. Like, an appendix is bad, well now you have a whole bunch of them, it’s ridiculous, you’ll see.
Of course, Musk also said at that 2019 event that Tesla would launch a fleet of robo-taxis in just one year. This never happened. Instead, Musk always buys crutches.
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