Volvo ends relationship with Luminar, removes Lidar from vehicles (www.repairerdrivennews.com)

Volvo has ended its relationship with lidar supplier Luminar and will remove the lidar sensor option from its EX90 and ES90 models, citing supply‑chain risk and “Luminar’s failure to meet its contractual obligations.” The move follows Luminar’s leadership shakeup — founder Austin Russell stepped down as CEO in May — and troubling financials: YTD revenue of about $18.8M, substantial R&D losses, roughly $429M in debt and only about $72M in cash, with a reported runway into early 2026. Luminar says it has suspended Iris LiDAR deliveries to Volvo and has filed a claim seeking damages; Volvo has notified affected customers that some orders are impacted. For the AI/ML and autonomy community, this is a notable blow to lidar-first strategies. Volvo asserts its vehicles can maintain high safety and driver support using “powerful core computing coupled with their advanced sensor set” (cameras, radar, etc.) without lidar, which implies increased investment in sensor fusion, camera-based perception, and robust model training to compensate for the loss of dense lidar point clouds. Practically, the decision raises questions about the commercial viability of specialized lidar startups, supplier concentration risks, and the timelines for lidar-enabled SAE‑level autonomy. It also forces OEMs and AV developers to reassess architectures and dataset requirements if high-resolution 3D sensing is no longer guaranteed in production fleets.