China's Hesai announces lidar sensor able to detect colour for autonomous driving

SHANGHAI, April 17 (Reuters) - Hesai, China's starring shaper of lidar, has developed a mentation of the exertion utilized successful autonomous driving that is susceptible of detecting colour, making it ‌more close and truthful safer, it said connected Friday.

The breakthrough fits successful with the ‌Chinese car industry's displacement this twelvemonth to value-driven innovation and distant from cost-cutting, CEO David Li said.

"If the manufacture focuses solely ​on pricing, efforts volition disproportionately spell toward cost-cutting, sacrificing opportunities for amended solutions that make greater value," Li told reporters.

Hesai's caller EXT lidar, powered by its proprietary Picasso chip, is the industry's archetypal to integrate spatial and colour detection successful 1 device, co-founder Sun Kai said astatine an lawsuit successful Shanghai.

Set for wide ‌production aboriginal this year, the merchandise ⁠will debut successful flagship vehicles by 2027, Sun added.

SUPPLIER TO CHINA AND BEYOND

Hesai supplies lidar systems to China's starring manufacturers of electrical cars, including Li Auto, ⁠Xiaomi and BYD and captured much than 40% of the marketplace successful 2025, according to the Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute.

Outside China, it is simply a superior lidar supplier for Nvidia's precocious operator assistance systems that volition beryllium ​used by ​automakers including Mercedes.

As of 2025, however, lidar was ​used successful lone 3% of vehicles worldwide, ‌according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, and not each automaker believes it is necessary.

Tesla, for instance, has favoured camera-only systems and Xpeng past twelvemonth said it would region lidar from caller models successful favour of AI-driven technologies.

Sun says determination is large maturation imaginable for lidar, which is an acronym for Light Detection And Ranging and uses airy to enactment retired wherever everything is. The inclusion of ‌colour means it tin separate a reddish postulation airy from ​a greenish one.

In summation to conveyance lidar systems, Hesai is ​targeting a broader marketplace successful carnal AI ​with its caller vino bottle-shaped handheld instrumentality Kosmo, which is designed to cod ‌real-world 3D information for creating "digital twins" of ​physical spaces.

The instrumentality aims to ​support the improvement of carnal AI systems, including humanoid robots, by giving them a amended knowing of real-world environments, Chief Technology Officer Xiang Shaoqing said. Hesai did not springiness a ​timeline for Kosmo's commercialized launch.

Its announcement ‌of the caller lidar was made up of the world's largest car show, which ​begins adjacent week successful Beijing, wherever much than 100 brands are expected to showcase ​cutting-edge technologies.

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; editing by Barbara Lewis)