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20 Mar 2025
'Top-ten' auto maker signs development and production deals that may see it adopt chip-scale lidar across multiple vehicles.
Aeva, the US-based lidar company developing the more advanced frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) version of the technology, says it has signed development and production deals with a major new customer.
Unspecified but said to be a “global top ten passenger OEM”, the customer has awarded Aeva a development program for its next-generation global vehicle platform.
In addition, it has signed a letter of intent for a large-scale multi-year production program award opportunity this year that is said to cover multiple vehicle models across the OEM’s global platform.
‘Massive’ opportunity
Aeva co-founder and CEO Soroush Salehian described the development agreement as “major validation” of the firm’s new “Atlas Ultra 4D” lidar sensor, which is described as the firm’s slimmest long-range high-resolution FMCW sensor offering simultaneous velocity and range detection.
Its design integrates all optical components, including transmitter, detector, and lenses, within a silicon photonics module.
“[This] represents another major automotive manufacturer moving to FMCW technology to expand its operational design domain and enable highway-speed Level 3 automation,” added the CEO, pointing out that the OEM has significant experience with time-of-flight lidar sensors.
“We believe these trends are just beginning and will ultimately benefit the automotive industry and Aeva as the emerging leader in the market.”
Speaking to investors discussing the company’s latest full-year financial report, Salehian said that the newly agreed development program would see the Atlas Ultra product “fine-tuned” to fit within the customer’s specific vehicles and packages.
“We expect to complete this program later this year, when we expect [to] transition to a large-scale production award - amongst the largest opportunity in the industry,” the CEO noted.
“With annual vehicle volumes in the millions, we believe the opportunity for the series production program upon conversion from this development phase is expected to be massive, and could cement our position as a market-leading [lidar] company globally.”
2025 sales ramp
Turning to the firm’s existing deal with Daimler Truck, which is expected to move into production next year, Salehian said that the schedule remained on track, with Daimler’s FMCW-equipped trucks still slated to appear in 2027.
Aeva has also been working closely with industrial sensor giant SICK, and with validation efforts now “substantially completed” Salehian is expecting that agreement to move into commercial deployments within around six months.
The overall momentum could see Aeva’s annual sales revenues double this year, suggested the CEO. Having just posted a total of $9.1 million for 2024 - up from $4.3 million in 2023 - Salehian and his executive team are forecasting a rise to between $15 million and $18 million in 2025.
Although the company’s spending continued to outpace revenues in 2024, with Aeva’s annual pre-tax loss steady at around $150 million, the company says that with major investment in production engineering efforts now completed, operating expenses should fall by around 15 per cent this year.
And while the firm’s cash pile has taken a significant hit over the past couple of years, CFO Saurabh Sinha told the investor call that the firm’s available liquidity - including $125 million in undrawn credit - would be sufficient to execute the planned ramp in production and to a manufacturing capacity of 100,000 units per year.
• Investors appeared to react positively to Aeva’s latest update, with the company’s Nasdaq-listed stock rising in value by around 16 per cent, to trade at just over $3. However, that valuation remains well below the all-time high of nearly $100 reached shortly after Aeva’s stock listing, and is also down 35 per cent since the start of 2025.
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