Aeva inks sensor deal with Nikon for industrial machines
06/11/2023 14:35
By Stephen Nellis
Nov 6 (Reuters) - Aeva Technologies AEVA.N on Monday
said that it has signed a deal to produce sensors for Nikon
7731.T industrial machines that can scan objects like cars
coming off an assembly line for microscopic defects.
Mountain View, California-based Aeva develops what are
called lidar sensors, which are often found on cars with
driver-assistance features to help the vehicle get a
three-dimensional view of the road.
While Aeva is targeting the automotive market, its sensor
can also be used in other applications that require
three-dimensional scanning, and in 2021 the company said it was
working with Nikon to improve the Japanese firm's industrial
equipment.
Nikon makes scanning machines that can examine cars and
other objects for tiny defects to help improve manufacturing
quality, but the machines are too large, slow and expensive to
use on every vehicle on a manufacturing line. The Aeva sensor
aims to make the machines smaller and cheaper so that more
vehicles can be inspected.
For the most stringent automakers, "the ultimate goal is
100%," Soroush Salehian, chief executive of Aeva, told Reuters
in an interview, noting that current percentages of scanned
vehicles vary with the automaker's quality demands. "What we
believe we can do over time is to further increase the
percentage" of production that scanners can handle.
Aeva said it expects to start supplying sensors to Nikon
next year, with Nikon products with Aeva sensors hitting the
market in 2025.
Salehian declined to say how many sensors Aeva will ship or
how much revenue the company expects from the Nikon deal. He
said that shipment volumes will be smaller than for the
automotive market but that each sensor cost about 10 times more
than an automotive sensor because of its higher precision.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by
Kirsten Donovan)
((Stephen.Nellis@thomsonreuters.com;))