Luminar Technologies Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 27, 2024

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Year 2023 Business Update Call. My name is Aileen Smith, and I am Luminar's Head of Investor Relations. With me today are Austin Russell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Fenimore, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, this call is being recorded, and you can find the shareholder letter that accompanies this call at investors. Luminartech.com.

Operator

Hopefully, most folks have had a chance to review our shareholder letter as we are continuing with our new earnings format this quarter. As with last quarter, we will spend the majority of the call addressing questions from our stakeholders, including the retail investor questions posted on the SAI platform, institutional investor questions emailed to our investors inbox, and live questions from our analyst community. We will be checking these platforms intermittently throughout the duration of the call to address any questions that come in real time. Austin wanted to begin our call with some welcome remarks, including a look back on 'twenty three and a look ahead into 2024. Before I pass the call over to him, I wanted to remind everyone that during the call, we may refer to GAAP and non GAAP financial measures.

Operator

Today's discussion also contains forward looking statements based on the environment as we currently see it and, as such, does include risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our shareholder letter for more information on the specific risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. With that, I'd like to introduce Luminar's Founder and CEO, Austin Russell.

Speaker 1

All right. Well, thanks, Aileen. And great to see all you guys here. So maybe just a quick opener before we jump into Q and A, if you had a chance to be able to take a look at that letter or kind of informational package. The team of I have been really quietly heads down focused on execution and the core execution for our business with all eyes on the industry's first production vehicle launch with Luminar and Volvo as standard on the new EX90.

Speaker 1

And it's funny as I think this is going to be a, well, one of the I mean, even the last earnings calls that where we're a preproduction R and D company before we truly enter our growth stage. And I'd say it's become abundantly clear that we've all seen all the challenges that the autonomy industry has faced historically in being able to develop, industrialize, and enable this whole next generation of capabilities on vehicles and bring it out into the commercial world and into consumer stands. And really, all of this has been laid bare to the public in recent history in the media and whatnot. A lot of this just comes down to the ambition of what most have been in the industry have been trying to do of replacing the driver altogether, you know, with robo taxis. And this is where Luminar from the beginning, we've taken a strategy of enhancing the driver and really focusing in on production vehicles.

Speaker 1

And that's where Luminar is succeeding where the rest of the industry hasn't. In the last 10 years of what we've done at Luminar, I've really been leading up to this global launch on production vehicles right around the corner with Volvo. And we'll be covering this at Luminar Day. To date, we've invested over $1,000,000,000 to develop a technology foundation product industrialization capabilities. And this year, it's Showtime.

Speaker 1

And it's true that there are incremental costs, like maybe what you saw this quarter that was more than the target. And we don't control all the timing for the vehicle launches. And we've learned a lot through the years on how we can even be more efficient. But now that's in our rearview mirror. And for the first time, our multibillion dollar order book is going to be converting to revenue this year.

Speaker 1

For the first time, we're going to start seeing the benefits around the world into consumers' hands. And, you know, of course, automakers are going to be well, maybe I shouldn't say, of course, but in the case of Luminar, automakers are going to be getting to directly market our technology to their consumers. And this initial EX90 launch is going to be preceded by a flurry of additional mass produced vehicle launches with automakers around the world over the coming 36 months following this. So, yes, it's a very exciting time, certainly going to be enabling a lot of additional operational and economic efficiencies and exponential economic growth as we start realizing the benefits of the economies of scale with this program. So very excited, everyone.

Speaker 1

Stay tuned for a special Luminar Day on April 23rd. And happy to be able to jump in with Tom here to be able to talk through the business, what's ahead, and yeah, well, sort of what we've had. As it relates, of course, to this year, we were able to hit the majority of the overall milestones that we had throughout 2023. And, we can give a little bit more commentary and, you know, questions on on all of that. Though, again, the critical part is a role around the core execution leading up to this launch.

Speaker 1

But we have also, in addition to that, been able to continue to scale our business, adding additional vehicle model commercial programs overall to our business plans. But again, the critical part is all about execution. That's what the industry hasn't done historically to be able to successfully launch. And that's what we're excited to be able to make happen for the first time.

Speaker 2

I think we're ready for Q and A, Aileen, if you want to start us off.

Operator

Great. Thanks, Austin. So we are going to begin with a couple of questions from our SAVE platform. Our first question was reiterated in a couple of different capacities. But as such, I think there exists an information gap between the performance of the company and how it's being evaluated by Wall Street.

Operator

Are there any plans to bridge this divide and bring new investment into the company and stock?

Speaker 1

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, Tom knows this just as well as I do. And, you know, obviously, we all have very much shared in the frustration from some of these kind of market dislocations and whatnot. And the reality is that there has been a disconnect in value over the last few years relative to what we've been able to accomplish. I mean, everything from, again, scaling from technology to product to going into now serious production going from what like a order book of less than $100,000,000 to $4,000,000,000 from being able to actually successfully invest, develop and deliver on these kinds of capabilities.

Speaker 1

And that's not to say that there's a lot more to do. We've got a lot to prove out. But there's also a lot of other factors that come into play and certain technical factors that I've had for better or worse too. I'll learn about through the way. The important part is, I think, when you talk about value, Luminar as a company is operating in a way to be able to deliver that long term value overall to our shareholders.

Speaker 1

And that's our North Star on that. And that's exactly what we're doing to be able to use, I would say, also comparable companies historically to what the NVIDIA's, the Tesla's, the Mobilize of the world have done at equivalent stages as benchmarks towards our journey to success. And as we execute, we have the opportunity to be able to become exactly like that.

Operator

Okay. Our second question from the SAVE platform. In its 10 ks filed on February 23rd, Mobileye noted that it's no longer actively working with Intel on its FMCW LiDAR development. Further, they noted that Mobileye is pursuing a different a different LiDAR technology. Can you please elaborate on how this affects Luminar?

Speaker 1

Yeah. So, you know, when it comes to mobile, I probably can't, you know, comment on our partners' internal business. But when it comes down to it, I will say that that's probably just yet another validating point that this stuff is hard. Like, it's not easy to be able to take things from people dramatically underestimate what it takes to go from, you know, PowerPoints to, you know, technologies to industrialized, you know, products for scale. And I would just say that's not even specific to any individualistic company, but also more generally the industry at large.

Speaker 1

And obviously, as more and more people realize this, it's ultimately more and more beneficial to Luminar, where we have done that. And I think that this is, again, all the more important to be able to show how we can successfully launch as well. And people are reading the tea leaves in the industry too for that, Matt, because this is it costs real money to keep running these programs too.

Operator

Okay. With that, we're going to switch gears and take a couple of questions from our analyst community. I would remind our analyst community that we will allow one initial question as well as a couple follow ups. Our first question is going to come from John Babcock at Bank of America.

Speaker 3

Hey, good afternoon guys. I guess just the first question I had on order book. I noticed there was a change in the way that you're calculating that. And last quarter you provided guidance that you expected to have this year at around $1,000,000,000 plus in additional order book. I think you mentioned it was around $800,000,000 We're just wondering how much of the impact or the gap there was from the change in the calculation?

Speaker 3

And also if you could just provide specifically how much that calculation overall impacted 2023 that would be great?

Speaker 2

Sure. And John, it's Tom. Let me start off with that. And first, let me talk about how we've done it differently. We ended, 'twenty three with about 25 awarded vehicle lines or commercial programs.

Speaker 2

And what we've done this year that is different than what we've done last year and this is just part of us being on that verge of the SOP and continuing to mature is we listed each of those vehicle lines. We then went to IHS as, I would say the ground truth for the volumes to use in calculating our order book as well as our internal forecasting. So we used IHS as the source of those volumes for SOP dates and EOP dates, for the vehicle lines that we have awarded. If we're standard like on the Volvo VX90, that's you just take a 100% of that. If you are not standard, what we've done is we've assumed a blanket 25 percent take rate.

Speaker 2

We looked at market data, we looked at what our customers are telling us. It typically ranged between 5% 50%. We kind of use 25%, which is a little less than the midpoint. Put a pin in that, we'll talk about a sensitivity analysis in a sec. And then we rolled up the order book that way.

Speaker 2

That resulted, I would say if you kind of look at on an apples to apples basis relative to the business we already won about a $400,000,000 decrease because I would say on average, ISS has more conservative volume estimates than I would say, the more the customer derived ones that we've used historically. If you look at what our total gross wins were during 2023, it was about $800,000,000 It was still a little bit shy than the $1,000,000,000 that we forecast because some decisions we were expecting to make in $23,000,000 had been deferred in the $24,000,000 We really didn't lose anything that we wanted to win. But I would say that more conservative forecast there kind of was about a $400,000,000 headwind in terms of the order book size that we've reported. Now going back to the take rate of 25%, if you want that to be 5% higher to 30% or 5% lower to 20% or whatever number you want to choose, a 5% change in that assumption impacts the size of our order book by about $400,000,000 to give that additional disclosure so that people can make their own estimates of the order book size there.

Speaker 2

But I would say it's a more analytical bottoms up based on more third party sources for volumes as opposed to kind of using what our customers have provided us.

Speaker 1

And on that note, I think what's great is we want to help set this standard in the industry when it comes to order book type of calculations because we've seen sort of, I would say, radically different, you know, views of, you know, of what those can amount to. And that's why it's like, it's like, oh, if you use the same kind of calculation that then our order book would be $100,000,000,000 or something at this point, which is that at that point, it just becomes irrelevant. We're probably not even probably still getting a fraction or not much credit at all today for even the order book that we have. So that's where I think what is cool is that now whereas I think when we were first doing this even before Tom was on board some years ago, there weren't like IHS volumes didn't exist for any of these things. And now, okay, like these models are starting to come to fruition, and that's what's at least exciting to me starting, what, in months in the countdown.

Speaker 3

Got you. That's very helpful. Thanks for all the color. I guess just last question before I turn it over. I mean I think like one of the difficult aspects of certainly your industry is trying to kind of gauge like how the adoption is for the different companies and how they're kind of thinking about that.

Speaker 3

Just kind of curious, is there any change in how companies are anticipating the adoption of autonomy? It seems like it's getting pushed off broadly, but just wondering if there has been any material change over

Speaker 4

last quarter. So we've read about EVs following and

Speaker 3

that does have some natural flow through given the technology adoption in EVs relative to currently for ICE vehicles anyway. But just overall, if you could kind of talk about how that cadence has changed, if it has changed at all from last quarter, that would be useful.

Speaker 4

You

Speaker 2

want me to go or you want me to do?

Speaker 1

Well, maybe we'll start off that I would say when it comes to the overall industry, we actually we have the roll up on this. Now the majority and actually around 80% of the top 20 automakers are planning on integrating either our LIDAR or just long range LIDAR generally by 2,030 and have it on the road map to be able to do that into their production vehicles. So there definitely is a a and for the remaining portion, I think it's like the remaining 15% is, you know, they're they're figuring out and 5% isn't. But so there's no shortage of interest in demand and everything in terms of what ultimately the ability for these technologies to get integrated across vehicle sales. The whole job of what we have is how do we find ways to further accelerate that adoption curve.

Speaker 1

I mean naturally to the point of, like, one thing that I think a lot of people in the tech industry don't appreciate as much, since we're kind of this weird mix of both the technology company and an automotive company at the same time is that automotive design cycles are very long, as I know, you know, of course. And this is where you take a look historically at the adoption cycles for new kinds of technologies in the automotive industry. And you're talking about 20 years from the time that something is first introduced to when it was standardized on every vehicle. And I think for LiDAR generally, I think we're actually seeing a faster adoption curve than probably any other technology maybe in automotive history or even just the overall concepts of like, I think what like battery electric vehicles are still like only a single digit percentage of vehicles sold after after 20 years. Like this stuff takes time.

Speaker 1

But the economics are massive, you know, when you're able to realize it. And that's why it's just so powerful to have real market penetration into this. And that's where I I'd also say it it kind of goes back to and and one of the things that I put in the letter is quality over quantity because you could have a dozen different OEMs that you're working with. But if it's like just on a single low volume, like vehicle that may or may not happen, that's like only so meaningful. If you are able to successfully come to fruition and realize value and benefits of the partnerships that you have, I mean, you're talking about tens of 1,000,000,000 of dollars in value that you can successfully realize even from, for example, just in our case, just the existing customers that we're working with.

Speaker 1

So that's where it's going to be important. I think to the overall point, though, on EVs and the last point that we want to address, there is to your point that is very real in terms of the growth headwinds that I think a lot of EV companies are facing. And I mean, both yeah. You're you're the analyst on that on that, not me, but from our conversations that, with some of the, like, pure EV companies, that's that's always the case. I think though that what is important and this is very much also a misconception I think about Luminar generally is that is the idea that we are only for EVs.

Speaker 1

The amount of company the amount of people that have actually had that have literally, gone out of a Luminar like an EV company or like EV tech company is surprising. So I think what is actually probably very surprising to many is that for the majority of vehicle platforms that we're on, they're actually that actually they do include combustion vehicle models or variants. And that's where I think that there is going to be a lot of value growth. And the reality is that it is true is that combustion engine vehicles aren't like just just disappearing overnight. But our technology and the safety benefits of this technology and the time saving benefits of this technology is independent of powertrain.

Speaker 1

So it's independent whether it runs a dinosaur truce or lithium ion. So that's that's sort of the perspective that we have and I think you know doesn't sort of materially affect the value or value proposition of what we're doing overall. So, but yes, that's the perspective.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Josh Bacalter at TD Capital.

Speaker 4

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. To start, following up on the sort of John's first one, unless I missed it in the shareholder letter, you didn't provide an order book target for this year. I was wondering if you could maybe speak to the rationale behind why you're not providing it this year. And maybe if you're not going to quantify, are there any sort of qualitative commentary you can give on upcoming RFPs and RFQs that you can help us better understand sort of the business funnel?

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Look, Josh, I think it's fair to say we're going to significantly grow our order this year. We're now 2024 is where we're going to be actually transitioning the order book from potential revenue into actual revenue. And so what we're going to be talking a lot more about this year is what our revenue is going to look like particularly from series production revenue. We gave some guidance for what we expect that to be on a quarterly run rate in the latter half of this year, particularly in the mid-thirty range.

Speaker 2

Look, we're confident that Volvo is going to start production on the EX90 in Q2. I think the ramp up and the exact pace as we get more confidence and clarity on what that exactly is going to be, we're going to refresh that as well. The order book is going to go up significantly. And what I would say is, in the conversations we're having with customers, both newer customers and existing customers, You know, there's some macro headwinds that we talked about before, like EV headwinds and how that impacts our product planning, as well as I would say some of the software complexity around getting these systems that right. But I would say when it comes to Luminar, they want to actually see us get the high volume production, which we will in the coming weeks.

Speaker 2

And I think they want more clarity of what our next generation ladder is going to look like. And we'll talk more about that at Luminar Day. Once we get those two things, that's going to unlock a lot more business. And as we win it, we'll set more specific targets.

Speaker 4

Understood. Thank you for all the color there, Tom. Actually, another one for you. You called out the goal, I think, of $115,000,000 in liquidity exiting the year. Any more details you can provide on sort of how we bridge that number?

Speaker 4

And maybe you can give us details on your expectations for that trajectory because in the ramp phase, but you also mentioned that industrialization costs should be coming down and it sounds like there's also some belt tightening. So it'd be great to hear some more color on how you expect to get to the $150,000,000 number. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. And so we're kind of the starting producing there is a $340,000,000 which a 2.90 of cash and the $50,000,000 of credit facility that we recently put in place. Our prime objective has always been to Volvo SOP. And if we have to spend a little bit more to get there at the sacrifice of our, near term results, like what we did in Q4, we're going to make that. But, now that we're getting, you know, really at Volvo SOP, we're really going to start the belt tightening.

Speaker 2

We're going to start aggressively attacking our unit economic costs, particularly the bomb and the manufacturing conversion costs. And then we're going to look to streamline Luminar and really assess what is core to us and then what are some things that can be done better in other ways. And we're going to start really looking at how we can streamline the organization. That as well as the wind down of some of the Iris industrial cost are going to continue to have our net cash spend in the right direction. It started that way in Q4.

Speaker 2

You know, we were hoping it'll be a little bit better, but it was still, you know, a big improvement from what the first half of the year look like there. You know, I would say our internal targets are a lot more aggressive than the 150 we have here. But I think once again, we want to get a little bit more clarity on exactly what that Volvo ramp up is going to look like and then what the corresponding cost ramp down looks like and then we'll provide more clarity on some of the actions we're taking here in a little bit.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Thank you. I'll take the floor.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. And I'll also say that obviously when it comes to just the overall business and environment, I think I just want to make sure there's kind of broad of where we're not oblivious to the overall change in macro environment, which we know there has been a significant change. There's been changes in industries, changes to other stuff. Not all of it is explained, like I said, from a market standpoint. But just more generally, I think it's totally fair to say that the kinds of investments that we're going to be doing going forward are going to be done on a much more conservative basis.

Speaker 1

Like, and sometimes, to be honest, it's it's it's painful because it's like, oh, like, we know this is good. This is absolutely going to have, like, a great 5 to 10 year payout if we do x, y, and z. But, like, that's the kind of thing that maybe brings you from, like, a 10,000,000,000 company to, like, a 20,000,000,000 company. Like like, I think that the point is is that let's focus on the core of what's driving and validating the value of what we have. Let's focus on validating the order book.

Speaker 1

That's the same reason why, like, honestly, it's not it's not like we could continue to add 1,000,000,000 of to to the order book for everything. That that's fantastic. But, like, we're not actually even really getting credit for even a fraction of of what we have today. So that's why I think focus on the floor, focus on validation. And I think just to be frank, there definitely are greater efficiency opportunities, in particular, given this over a $1,000,000,000 investment that we've made historically, we're we're past that peak of cash spend, and we're riding that tailwind from that big investment that we've made to be able to realize these full benefits for the next decade to come from that technology foundation, product foundation and industrial capabilities that we built.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Itay Michaeli at Citibank.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks, Eileen. Hi, everyone. Just a couple of thoughts from me. First, on gross margins, I know in the past you have provided some targets there.

Speaker 6

If you do hit kind of when you hit the mid-thirty million target, any color you can share come around how we should be thinking about kind of gross margin for the company at that point?

Speaker 2

Yes. Look, we're hoping to see some improvements in Q4. It took a little bit more effort to get ready for the Volvo SOP, which as I mentioned before was the prime directive and the right priority here at Luminar. It's all going to be dependent Itay on how quickly that volume ramps up and how quickly we can ramp down the cost, both the unit economics, as well as some of the fixed costs that we have embedded in our COGS, which is a fair amount. And so we are actively working on a plan to make that happen as fast as possible.

Speaker 2

And as we get more clarity on the ramp up at Volvo and the corresponding ramp down in the cost, which is going to be the biggest driver on that, we'll get more clarity there. But I think it's very safe to say that you're going to see a fair amount of improvement as we get into the latter half of the year.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. The other thing that I note more generally is that there's really this overall notion of COGS is like extremely confusing to a point where, you know, like, I even sort of have to dissect it of, like, what are all the different components that go into this in terms of actually, like, a surprising amount of components that that go into this, particularly from the industrialization side as well. You're talking everything from like literally consulted costs all the way through like, you know, other, you know, one off costs that you have to be able to accomplish. And I think that that's the part that we're we're really focused on driving. Of course, we're also focused on driving the further the unit economics.

Speaker 1

But even today, I mean, it is you know, it is incremental, like from a variable cost perspective, it is incrementally positive already, which was how we originally underwrote some of the thinking around, gross margin more generally on a product basis across the board for the different kinds of product capabilities that we have. So that's what is positive and obviously not what is immediately obvious. But I think that's where we're going to also have to figure out how we can, you know, better break out some of the industrialization costs. And but most importantly, make sure that cost is still cost, you know, and we want to be able to realize the economies of scale of Volvo and drive that down by the time that happens come within the first half of the year.

Speaker 6

Got it. That's all very helpful. Thanks for the detail. Maybe just a quick follow-up going back to the order book. To what extent was the shortfall in 2023 tied to the timing of the next generation LiDAR?

Speaker 6

And if it was, how should we think about when, your customers can kind of make decisions, sourcing decisions around that next generation, lidar?

Speaker 2

Yeah, look, we'll talk more about that. I think that's a very good question and observation there Itay. What I would say is, I've always described our next gen LiDAR as kind of like a smaller, better, cheaper. And we're looking to accelerate that in terms of some of the commentary streamlining, making sure that we can industrialize our products faster, applying the lessons we've learned after over the last 3 years going through what we went with Oniris to make sure that we can get it to the market as fast as possible, because our customers really like that product. They really want it.

Speaker 2

And I would say, you know, the timelines that we're working on for that are starting to align with, their product planning cycle. It's not exactly there yet, but it's going to be there pretty soon. And I would say waiting a few months to get that next better product, you know, as opposed to kind of taking ours, which is a great product today. But, you know, you know, taking that for, you know, 6, 12 months and then transitioning to the next generation when there's a natural slowing, you know, as people revisit their product planning because of the EV headwind, some of the software struggles they're facing, that is kind of aligning. And I would say, we didn't lose anything that we wanted to win that wasn't the reason for the order book mix, it was all just decision making that was supposed to happen by 23 being in the 24.

Speaker 6

Terrific. Very, very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say that when it comes to product planning cycles, you know, in, in programs, you know, part of the whole point is, is that there's a relatively limited, like there's only so many automakers that like are early adopters of something. You know, that's part of the reason why a lot of this stuff is super lumpy as well, along the way, you know. And I think, like I said, we're we're we're as you said, we won everything we wanted to 1 win this this past year. The thing is that when it comes to product cycles for this, the way that we're kind of thinking about the road map side of it is a new kind of step function improvement in product every sort of 3 to 4 years.

Speaker 1

I know a lot of times in just certain industries, we'll have like 1 to 2 year product cycles, but like that's not particularly useful in automotive, because you have like 7 year long program spans. And even then, you really want to be able to best leverage the economies of scale and supply chain. So that's, of course, for the next gen stuff, that's what I'm really excited to be able to unveil at Luminar Day, given that the work that we've done for, what, like 5 years now on the back end for this next generation technology development. And that's where the transformation can happen of where whereas Iris like an Iris Plus like it's great for what's there is, you know, Tom mentioned like what now it's scaled up to 25, you know, vehicle models and programs, you know, with that. But, you know, that's something that goes like 100,000, you know, millions or whatever with the next generation.

Speaker 1

That's where you can you could ultimately see this being on mainstream vehicles. Capable of being on tens of millions of vehicles and scaling accordingly. So that's really the breakthrough objective that we have ahead. But we'll share the details at Luminar Day.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Appreciate all the detail.

Operator

All right. We're going to take a few questions from the ESA community. First one, how will the company offset the loss of business for autonomous vehicles? Indeed, it appears to be shrinking and not growing. Are you planning for growth or planning for sustainability?

Speaker 2

Look, we're planning for both. When you look at the order book and what we've calculated that and you kind of look at autonomous robo taxis, I think there's a few $1,000,000, you know, so less than 1% in our order book and that's simply from, you know, POs that we have in hand for this year. And so our order book is almost in the passenger vehicle and consumer space. That is a bet that Austin made several years ago to focus on that. If and when robo taxis get here in the near future, that's great.

Speaker 2

That is all upside to our order book, as well as our near and medium term growth.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. And I would say not only that is that the kind of stuff that and this is oftentimes very much confused with Luminar and obviously part of the frustration of, as it relates to broader industry is sometimes we get painted with the same brush. But not only are some of this floundering they've had, you know, not that doesn't affect any any portion of the business because we didn't have any of that. But we've had the focus from, for production vehicles the whole time. It actually is further validating of our thesis that we made the right moves in this.

Speaker 1

And that's why also we're able to lead the charge. A relatively small company like Luminar shouldn't have won out over the Waymo's and Cruises and Argo Auroras and Apples and others other stuff of the world to be able to be first to a global production vehicle with this of technology because it doesn't make sense. So the reason why it just comes down to the right technology, the right strategy, the right bets, the right capabilities that we're building from a full stack standpoint. And obviously, the goal is to have that validated where we can get separated from that pack of autonomous vehicles companies that, you know, may be or haven't been as successful and really show how we can be more as I said, like those other kinds of, growth tech comparable companies I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 5

What have

Speaker 2

we got next, Aileen?

Operator

Our second question is, is the higher cost of implementing LIDAR the reason behind as to why car companies are holding back on LIDAR? If so, do you see this becoming cost effective in the future to be widely considered by most people?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Look, I think we're there today, particularly with our next gen product, you know, whereas I mentioned, we're going to be taking the cost down. And so, you know, look, our customers are always going to ask for lower pricing, but we've been able to commercialize and industrialize, our initial product with Iris to get it on vehicles starting here imminently. Now albeit it tends to be at the higher price point which is very consistent with the introduction of any new technology. But I would say, you know, while our OEMs customers are always going to beat up on cost, that is not really what I would say is an obstacle, for us winning more business, particularly with our next gen product.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. And, yeah, I would say that the biggest barrier is just the natural adoption cycles that we talked about earlier. It just takes time for new platform new vehicle platforms to come out and to get adopted. And the reality is that folks like particularly in particular, Volvo is always the first to introduce new kinds of safety technologies. Mercedes is generally the first to introduce new kinds of other advanced technologies.

Speaker 1

We're working with both of those companies to be able to make that happen to production, show the industry what's possible, and then it trickles down from there.

Operator

Okay. We're going to switch back to our analyst community. Our next question is going to come from Kevin Cassidy at Rosenblatt.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. And, you

Speaker 5

know, it's right along the same lines, Austin and Tom, what you were just saying. I wanted to understand more about the next gen product market that you're addressing with that, how much larger is it? How many more bids are you looking at than compared to the early adopters? I just want to see where the momentum is.

Speaker 1

I would say that so if you take a look at our opportunity on this, like I said, I think we're kind of within this same realm and world with Iris and Iris Plus. The next gen product that unlocks, I would say, probably at least to another order of magnitude of volume opportunity, maybe more. I mean, arguably, there's actually already in order of magnitude additional volume opportunity even with just our existing customers on LiDAR alone, much less, you know, new customers. So I think this is where, we see this as a big opportunity to drive further adoption throughout the industry. I think also, though, that the most critical part of all this is all going to be about recognition of value.

Speaker 1

Right now, I think, you know, LiDAR is cool. It's seen as important. But it's not it doesn't yet have the status of what sort of Volvo is called as kind of the 21st century seat belt, you know, and that's where we want to be able to get to so that this is truly a standardized technology across the industry. And there's frankly no reason why can't happen. The key is just showing also the safety benefits.

Speaker 1

And that's why I had mentioned that we've been collaborating with these 3rd parties to provide our technology to them for testing that's being independently run to be able quantify the safety benefits of what can be had on vehicle. And we have a host of different audits that are actually extremely interested in the goals of this comprehensively as it relates to their product planning and for that matter, in terms of the future, for that matter, when it comes to the safety benefits and improvements, which directly affects us. And that's why, when you talk about the long term benefits of this, you're talking about 1,000 of dollars of value and savings being added for every LiDAR put onto a vehicle, assuming any kind of material safety improvement and savings when you take a look at a total cost of ownership perspective. So that's where we need to get to. It just needs to be broader recognition of value as well.

Speaker 1

But it doesn't but but it also takes, of course, the product to be simple to do that. And that's where one of the milestones that we have for this year in addition to scaling up the factory that we have down in Mexico. We're also getting our next also high capacity factory online as well to support additional production with TPK.

Speaker 5

Great. Maybe just as a follow-up, you hit on a couple of points there, but right now the buyer, when he's buying the Volvo car, is it an option for him to put in a Luminar LIDAR or is it Standard. Standard. Okay. That's great.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from Kevin Garrigan at Westpac.

Speaker 2

Hey, Kevin.

Speaker 8

Hey, Tom. Hey, Austin. How's it going? Thanks for letting me ask a question. So I guess I'm just kind of wondering if you can talk about the progress that you've made with Civil Maps.

Speaker 8

I mean, one of the US automotive OEMs recently talked about continuing to use LiDAR for mapping. So kind of wondering if that's becoming more of a talking point in your discussions with OEMs than maybe it was 6 months ago. And is that kind of put you on an advantage compared to others that are fighting for the same RFI or RFQ?

Speaker 2

Absolutely, it is. Like, look, it's just, I like to describe it as value created in the ecosystem by our LiDAR. Austin just mentioned the safety improvements which manifest itself in the insurance savings. The other Kevin before you just asked it for an option or a standard, but, you know, there is, for a lot of the customers we're talking to, it's an option for, L3 or certain levels of autonomy, which the consumer has demonstrated a willingness and ability to pay for. And for here, you're going to have a lot of vehicles that are going to be driving around collecting 3 d data, which is a very useful tool to map the environment around you.

Speaker 2

And so we want to work with our OEMs and we're having conversations with them as about how you can capture that and monetize it. Because ultimately the more value we can create with our LIDAR, you know, the more willingness that they are to buy it and, you know, as I mentioned earlier, beat us less up on price because they're going to look at the value created in ecosystem and the more tools we provide them to do that, the better it's going to be. So I'm not going to go into much more detail now, but, yes, you know, we are getting good commercial traction on the mapping side, and it's another tool in the arsenal when we go in and have those strategic and commercial conversations with our customers.

Speaker 1

We'll share more at Luminar Day.

Speaker 8

Okay, got it. Okay, perfect. Thank you for that. And then just as a follow-up, can you talk a little bit about how things are going with Nissan? I mean, are things on track with what you've been expecting?

Speaker 8

Are things taking longer or is Nissan kind of waiting for the next gen LiDAR? Any update there would be great.

Speaker 2

Look, they're continuing to move forward for, as a reminder, Nissan, we're at a development contract that at some point in the future is going to convert into series production and we're very confident of that. We're continuing to move forward on the development side. As I mentioned during the last earnings call, that kind of moved into the next stage of the development contract. As a reminder, right now, we have 0 in the order book for Nissan. And the reason for that is they really haven't converted that from a development contract to a series production contract.

Speaker 2

And that's one of those things that is ultimately out of our control. It's going to be dictated by NIESEC's product planning and when they're ultimately ready to start putting that on series production awards. I think that is going to happen soon. They're working with a version of Iris. They're not waiting for the next gen product, although, as you can imagine, I think they're very excited about it.

Speaker 2

And I would say they're also we're in discussions with them about how we can grow within the Luminar ecosystem in addition to just latter there. So that's move continue to move forward that's going well, but hasn't converted into that series production award yet, which is a trigger where we put

Speaker 4

it in

Speaker 8

the order book. Got it. Okay. Perfect.

Speaker 4

Thanks, guys.

Operator

Our next question will come from Mark Delaney at Goldman Sachs.

Speaker 2

Hey Mark.

Speaker 9

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking the questions. The company noted that a double digit percent of revenue is coming from non lidar hardware sales already. Can you detail where Luminar has had the most success so far? And how do you see these efforts progressing in areas like insurance, software and semiconductors?

Speaker 9

And then to what extent are these business adjacencies to ones you want to pursue if you are trying to be more cost optimized?

Speaker 2

Look, it's a very good question. I think you kind of answered your own question where it's kind of like all of the above, right? We do have sales from Luminar Semiconductor, which actually provides some of the critical components to our LiDAR. There are sales from that. I would say there are some sales not big in there for software, but it's more development work we're doing as opposed to actually selling it in like series production scale.

Speaker 2

So it's more for development work that we're looking to do. There isn't, I would say anything material in there for insurance yet. And then we're looking to there are some sales in there in terms of you know, monetizing some of the information we gather and we kind of used mapping like that as well. And so we are making progress on that. It is, I would say a material part of our revenue.

Speaker 2

But I just in the near term mark what's really going to drive our revenue growth this year is getting the series production with Volvo and selling our LIDAR to them. One of the things we are hoping to do and it's one of the business milestones we set out here is to expand I would say that ecosystem around our LiDAR even more and manifesting that into the equivalent of series production wins.

Speaker 9

That's helpful. My other question

Speaker 1

I was going to say also on the topic there too in particular for the Luminar AI engine that we announced at Luminar Day last year, that's been a huge driver as well and being able to realize success of the ecosystem. So that's a critical part of that. I think, like I said, we're going to outline more of the details around the ecosystem at Luminar Day in particular. But to Tom's point, I think we think the most we actually haven't counted anything like a lot of that stuff even as well like in the order book, like for example, there's no semiconductors in the order book, none of that stuff because it's I think I think I mean, there's a lot of nuance to it. So I think we can provide more detail on that.

Speaker 1

But it's also important like when you talk about the incremental costs, a lot of the stuff that we're talking about in terms like the long term work. Like, I would say even as it relates to like LIDAR and industrialization, historically, we may have been a lot more open to doing product customizations for certain types of customers and like autonomous vehicle companies and roll truck companies out there, for example. And these have those do have real cost. And like when the revenue opportunity is like probably in the same vicinity as the cost of what it takes to actually do that and execute that at best, you know, then then you obviously have to have to question those things. And and obviously, you're making it upfront.

Speaker 1

So I think there's there's a lot of lower hanging fruit as well that we can do where I would say probably 80, like 80% to 90% of the value is in the top probably getting more than 90% of the values in the top like 50% of the initiatives that we have. So that's where we can just we can work the dial on that as well to be more conservative or more aggressive depending on how much we want to spend. And obviously, we're for starting this year, we're going to as I mentioned earlier, we're going to lean much more toward the conservative end of that spectrum.

Speaker 9

Very helpful. Thanks. And my other question was just about one of your objectives for this year, which is to pass the final run rate test for the EX90. Maybe you can talk about what steps Luminar still needs to achieve in order to be ready to pass that final run at rate test and what's different from the run rate test you had talked about passing on the last quarterly call? Thank you.

Speaker 2

It's that final test is, I would say, at a higher, at a higher rate, in which kind of reflects the, I would say, phase 2 of where they want us to be able to produce that. And it has more strict standards in measuring the quality and the yield that comes off of that. And so I think we're going to have the results of that test very soon and based upon the work that the team has achieved to date, we're very confident that the results of that test are going to be positive. But when we have official results, then we'll share more broadly. But that's not something we're losing a lot of sleep at night.

Speaker 1

That's basically the final green light for launch over the coming months here. So, yeah, we'll be good.

Operator

Okay. We'll take a few more questions from the SAI platform and from our institutional investors. A question for It seems like there are examples of LiDAR being used in agriculture, industrial, and military segments. Is Luminar actively targeting these businesses?

Speaker 1

Yeah. No, it's a good question. And I think to the point, the answer is, is that, yes, we are providing technology and product into those kinds of respective industries. The important part here, though, and this goes back to, you know, being more conservative on like investment spend, what we're not doing at this stage is like investing incremental resources that would be required to pursue like those industries aggressively or like product modifications, anything like, you know, I think there are certain programs that it's like, oh, okay. These are literally costing like $10,000,000 $20,000,000 $30,000,000 you know, and like that, you know, it adds up.

Speaker 1

You have to value respectively, like what's the opportunity on the other end. And the reality is, is that we're not going to spend a bunch of time on that when we have the $4,000,000,000 to prove, for ourselves that people are discounting to nothingness today. So it's like, okay, you know, we got it. We got to adapt to the environment. But that said, I don't I don't want to discount like there there are very much real applications outside of just the core automotive business that we're already starting to realize and not just with the LIDAR, even literally going down to the semiconductor level.

Speaker 1

So the same kinds of break through, lidar semiconductor chips that we've developed, we've actually already been able to start selling into other industries as well. And this is where that's a contributor to that double digit percentage revenue that was mentioned earlier.

Speaker 2

This is going to be a key initiative for us in 2024, particularly as, we've industrialized Iris and we got the manufacturing plant up and running. That is going to give us the supply to sell more into this market. We had our business development team spend more of their time in this segment. And so it's nowhere near as big of a volume as there is in the passenger vehicle space. You can actually get better pricing in this segment, which helps the margins.

Speaker 2

But now that we've kind of industrialized the product, this is going to be more of a focus area for us. But the priority by far is still going to be on the passenger vehicle side and that's where we're going to have, you know, the our, you know, our team spend, you know, the incremental portion of their time on.

Operator

And another question for, or a question for Tom, when are we expecting Luminar to be profitable?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Look, right now, we're focused on getting to the Volvo SOP. And, you know, as we're getting there, we're gonna start aggressively, attacking our unit economics costs and streamlining the business. I want to see how that plays out, call it over the next couple of quarters before, you know, giving an updated guidance on when exactly that's going to be.

Operator

Okay. And a follow-up to that, will Luminar need to sell more stock to fund operations?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Look, I think a similar question there. We have $340,000,000 of pro form a liquidity as we mentioned earlier. What we want to do is, as again, get to that Volvo SOP, assess what that ramp up is going to look like, assess how we can kind of streamline our unit economics as well as our operations, and then look at the balance sheet and figure out what if any actions we want to make. Getting to Volvo SOP is step 1.

Speaker 2

And then, you know, from there, we'll figure out what, if anything, we need to do to, to address the balance sheet.

Operator

Great. We're going to take a few remaining questions from the analyst community. Our next question is going to come from Winnie.

Speaker 1

I'd also say just generally there too. I We're of course always thinking about and we do understand the importance and not lost on us when it comes to operational efficiency overall. And that's where I think that whole wartime mentality comes into play when it comes to like a costing standpoint and realizing the economy at scale and realizing that $1,000,000,000 investment. And we've obviously always have great interest when it comes to from a private side and back in those days. And now, obviously, as a public business, it's a different world.

Speaker 1

But I think our mentality is definitely shifting around that balance. And that's where you start to see, like I said, with the cost down from this quarter, and that's where we're going to spend more time on that. But step 1, you got approved, you can make them in scale.

Speaker 2

Step 2 is then you aggressively attack the cost to make them as profitable as possible. Exactly. And we're now transitioning to step 2.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Operator

Okay. Our next question from the analyst community is going to come from Winnie Dong at Deutsche Bank.

Speaker 10

Hi, thanks so much. Hello. Thanks so much for taking my questions. I was wondering if you can provide an update on the competitive landscape during RFQs, maybe an update on your win rate, in particularly in U. S.

Speaker 10

And China? And then also on the order book update, I just wanted to clarify if that's something that, you know, you will no longer provide in the beginning of the year as you had, you know, in the past couple of years.

Speaker 2

We're we're, let me just clarify here. We're going to continue to give, order book updates at the end of the year. You know, right now we're focused on getting to Volvo SOP and getting better clarity on when some of the decisions were or conversations when more customers when those are formally going to be decided. But we're going to continue to update our order book at the end of the year. We just haven't given any guidance yet in terms of how much we expect it to grow this year.

Speaker 2

But it will grow and, you know, we are confident that it's going to grow significantly. Look, on the competitive landscape, we're starting to see the rationalization come. You're starting to see some of the startups just some of that rationalization start to take place. I think it's going to accelerate here as balance sheets start to get tighter and tighter and tired and the fundraising environment gets tougher, tougher and tougher. We've also seen, some of the big companies, whether they're Tier 1s or other technology companies who have been in the LiDAR space, look to exit.

Speaker 2

I mean, you guys can go over the list of Tier 1 suppliers that either had LIDAR partners or tried to do it on their own that are no longer trying it. We start off the call with a question about mobile line Intel and it looks like they're stopped and work together on lidar. This is tough, right? Industrializing this very complicated technology. We've learned this, you know, over the last 3 years.

Speaker 2

Now, we've come out successfully on the other end, and we've learned a lot, and we're going to apply those learnings to make Luminar leaner and meaner going forward. But the level of competition that we're seeing in these RFQs is declining And there's really only a handful of LiDAR companies, if that, that we think the automakers are seriously considered to deploy on their vehicles in the coming future.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. And I think, I mean, like, Liza, you look at it, what, 5 years ago, 6 years ago, I think we counted a little over around 200 different initiatives for LiDAR in terms of different companies and Tier 1s and automakers and technology companies. I think now in the I mean, I can count on one hand how many are left over and viable. Of course, when it comes to just want to be super clear, though, when it comes to a product performance perspective and the capabilities that can enable, that's really the thing that Luminar has always been uncompromising on. There are ways to take shortcuts.

Speaker 1

There are ways to develop lesser capabilities using off the shelf components. There are ways to do all of these things. Like the whole point is, is that from a to be able to operate safely and at highway speed, like that's the thing where if you want to be able to do that, you need to implement Luminar. If you want to go for a different product scope, then you can talk about a different kind of, in theory, it's possible to integrate a different solution. But nevertheless, I think in any scenario, regardless of all of that, this is the first time, of course, in the case of Volvo, where we actually start to see this launch at global scale and be able to actually get into the hands of consumers much less standardized on a production vehicle like that.

Speaker 1

So, and showing off those full kinds of capabilities.

Speaker 2

Helene, I think we have time for, one more question, and we're coming up to

Operator

the top of the hour here. Yep. Our last question is going to come from Jaime Perez at RF Lafferty.

Speaker 7

Hey, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. Hey, Austin. I know we have Volvo coming up. Who else is in the lineup?

Speaker 7

I mean, we've talked about Polestar and also the announcement of Geely only in Lotus Technology. I mean, Geely is in a, you know, you have a partnership with Geely. So who's next in the lineup?

Speaker 2

Yes. Look, I don't think we've announced anything publicly with like Lotus or Geely. So I just wanted to correct that. But you know Volvo EX90 is coming. You know, after that will be Polestar 3.

Speaker 2

After that will be Mercedes Benz. And, you know, after that will be some other stuff we'll talk about at the right time. But as we talked about with our order book, we have 21 in excess now of 25 awarded vehicle lines and major programs. And I would say most of them, vast majority of them are going to be launching really over the next 36 months. The most difficult one by far is the first one, which we're more or less there on.

Speaker 2

We're very proud of the fact like, look, Volvo said publicly they're going to be launching DX90 in Q2. If you look at what IHS forecast is for Q2, they are anticipating several 1,000 production units of the X90. So we're more or less there. That's the first one. The next 24 plus should be nowhere near the level of difficulty as we just gone through.

Speaker 2

And we've learned a lot, and, you know, we're going to be doing things better and more efficient. But, in the next 36 months, we're going to be very busy, launching our products on new vehicle lines and getting more vehicles out on the road with our technology. You know, this summer, I think you're probably going to start to see vehicles, you know, the ball is on the road with our technology on it, very excited about it.

Speaker 7

Yeah. It seems like you have a deep lineup. We do.

Speaker 2

We got a lot of work in front of us.

Speaker 7

Right.

Speaker 2

But I, you know, I think the tough part is behind us. Right? Doing it the first time is the toughest. And I would say, you know, most of those vehicle lines are are using the same product, you know, you know, so it's not like launching a new product is tough, taking the same product and putting on a new vehicle line. There's incremental work, there's incremental cost, but nowhere near what it is of launching it the first time.

Speaker 7

Kinda like Elon says, prototype is easy, production is hard.

Speaker 2

Oh, believe me. We've learned that the hard way over the last few years, and we've learned a lot, and we're gonna become a better company as a result of that.

Speaker 7

Alright. So thanks for taking my questions. Have a great night.

Speaker 2

Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Alright, Aileen. I think that,

Operator

That marks the end of our analyst queue. I'd like to thank everybody for sticking around and participating in the call, for the analysts that asked questions and for the investors and other folks, who sent in questions and joined us. We look forward to talking with you next quarter.

Speaker 2

Thanks, everyone. All right.

Speaker 1

Thanks, guys.

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Key Takeaways

  • Luminar’s transition from R&D to production is underway, with the Volvo EX90 set to be the industry’s first vehicle launched with Luminar’s LiDAR as standard, marking the start of revenue conversion from its multi-billion-dollar order book.
  • The company revised its order book calculation by using IHS volume estimates and a 25% option take rate, resulting in a $400 million headwind, and offers a $400 million sensitivity range per 5% take-rate change for transparency.
  • A next-generation LiDAR described as “smaller, better, cheaper” is set to be unveiled at Luminar Day, expected to unlock an order of magnitude more volume opportunity and align with automaker product cycles.
  • Luminar is shifting to operational efficiency, targeting over $150 million in year-end liquidity through aggressive unit cost reductions, manufacturing optimizations, and organizational streamlining following peak R&D spending.
  • As many LiDAR competitors and Tier 1 initiatives exit the market, Luminar asserts its full-stack technology, industrialization experience, and safety validation position it as the leading candidate for automotive LiDAR deployment.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Luminar Technologies Q4 2023
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