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The world’s biggest maker of sensors for self-driving cars has poured cold water on the chance of rapid growth for fully autonomous vehicles, saying society and regulators are not ready to accept deaths caused by machines that drive themselves.
David Li, co-founder of Shanghai-based lidar maker Hesai, said he remained “conservative” about the pace of scaling up fully autonomous vehicles.
“Close to one million people lose their lives every year to car accidents. If a technology company builds a vehicle that kills one person every year, that’s one-millionth of the difference, but it will have trouble to survive,” said Li in an interview ahead of his company’s listing in Hong Kong.
The statement from a big supplier of a part crucial to self-driving cars comes despite the launch of robotaxi services by Elon Musk’s Tesla and Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, in the US.
In China, search giant Baidu and start-ups including Pony.ai and WeRide operate self-driving fleets. Some carmakers have also equipped their models with semi-autonomous capabilities, but Beijing has tightened regulations on them after a fatal crash involving a Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan.
“We have a very low tolerance when they make a mistake,” said Li. “It is not just a technology question — it is a social question, it is a regulatory question, it is a political question.”
Hesai was founded in 2014 and raised $190mn in an initial public offering in New York in 2023. The company accounts for more than a third of global car lidar sales and is expanding its market share as a supplier for robotics.
On Tuesday, the company raised HK$4.16bn (US$535mn) through its offering in Hong Kong. Shares rose nearly 8 per cent in early trading to HK$229.
The deal was underwritten by state-backed China International Capital Corporation, Guotai Haitong and CMB International Capital, with cornerstone investors including a subsidiary of Chinese billionaire Zhang Lei’s Hillhouse and south-east Asian superapp operator Grab.
Funds from the listing will be used for research, product development, factory expansion and manufacturing automation, according to the prospectus.
Since President Donald Trump took office this year, US-listed Chinese technology companies have considered offering shares in Hong Kong amid mounting concern that his administration might pursue delistings of Chinese companies.
Hesai has been fighting allegations by the Pentagon that it has links to the Chinese military, but Li said its dual listing did not reflect fear of an impending delisting in the US.
“There’s always rumours, but we don’t operate based on rumour,” said Li, adding that the company believed investors in Hong Kong had a better understanding of the self-driving car sector.
Lidar sensors use pulsed laser light to generate a three-dimensional map of a machine’s surrounding environment to help guide it and avoid collisions. The global market for the technology is forecast to reach $6.6bn in 2030 from $2.8bn this year, according to logistics data provider Mordor Intelligence.
Hesai reported second-quarter net profit of Rmb44.1mn ($6.2mn), up from a net loss of Rmb72.1mn the same period last year. Revenues rose 54 per cent to Rmb706.4mn.
Shipments more than tripled to 352,000-plus units, as more companies adopted lidar to support so-called level-two autonomy, which includes speed and steering support and more advanced features such as lane change signalling and hands-free urban driving.
While Hesai believes it is well-placed to meet increased lidar demand as more sophisticated level-three systems are commercialised, Li is more immediately upbeat on robotics.
He said Hesai could leverage its technology and manufacturing scale from the car business to provide lidar sensors for autonomous products such as humanoid robots, drones, lawnmowers and forklifts.
Amid rising western protectionism against Chinese-made technology, the group is also moving to diversify manufacturing outside China.
Construction on its first overseas factory, in south-east Asia, is expected to start in late 2026.
Additional reporting by Gloria Li in Hong Kong