Ford feeds flurry of autonomous vehicle investment activity with the acquisition of solid-state lidar developer Princeton Lightwave

August 20, 2018 | Case Study

In line with the hype surrounding autonomous vehicles (AVs), the automotive ecosystem has seen an ongoing, somewhat panicked, flurry of investments as automakers attempt to stay at the head of the pack and beat out outsiders like Google and Tesla. Just one example is Ford's acquisition of lidar developer Princeton Lightwave at the end of October 2017, which closely followed GM's acquisition of lidar developer Strobe at the beginning of that very same month. Ford is no stranger to investments in lidar companies, having invested $75 million into Velodyne LiDAR just the year before; the difference is that Ford invested in a mechanical lidar company, Velodyne, but chose to acquire a solid-state lidar company, Princeton Lightwave.