Vueron Newsletter
No. 217
2025.07.01
| Nvidia Wins Autonomous Driving Challenge at AI Conference; Nvidia GTC Paris | ||
| LiDAR | RoboSense steers towards profits as LiDAR gains traction | |
| Autonomous trucking | North Texas Company Partners with Aurora to Launch Autonomous Vehicle Workforce Program | |
| Kodiak Announces Delivery of Two Additional Customer-Owned and -Operated Driverless Trucks to Atlas; Launches Driverless Service Up To 24/7 | ||
| Innoviz unveils new LiDAR for smart city applications |
1. Nvidia Wins Autonomous Driving Challenge at AI Conference; Nvidia GTC Paris
- Nvidia secured another victory in the Autonomous Driving Grand Challenge at CVPR 2025, held in Nashville, Tennessee.
- This marks the company’s second consecutive win in the “End-to-End at Scale” category and third overall Grand Challenge award at CVPR since 2023.
- The 2025 challenge theme focused on “Towards Generalizable Embodied Systems” using NAVSIM v2, a data-driven simulation framework for AVs.
- Participants generated driving trajectories in semi-reactive simulations, where background traffic was dynamic, but ego vehicle paths were fixed.
- Entries were evaluated using the Extended Predictive Driver Model Score, assessing safety, comfort, rule compliance, and generalizability.
- Nvidia’s winning entry featured a Generalized Trajectory Scoring Method combining coarse and fine-grained paths filtered by a transformer decoder.
- The transformer decoder assessed trajectories for safety and comfort, excelling in nuanced distinctions across various simulated scenarios.
- Nvidia also had a strong presence at CVPR 2025, with over 60 papers presented across automotive, healthcare, and robotics domains.
Nvidia won CVPR’s 2025 Autonomous Driving Grand Challenge with a highly adaptable trajectory evaluation method, reinforcing its leadership in AI-driven AV development.
2. RoboSense steers towards profits as LiDAR gains traction
- RoboSense, a leading Chinese LiDAR maker, reduced its Q1 2025 net loss by 24% and grew gross profit by 73%, signaling potential near-term profitability.
- Despite a 9.2% revenue decline, the company’s gross margin rose to 23.5%, driven by lower raw material costs and cost-effective in-house integrated chips.
- RoboSense’s new products like the E1R and Airy systems, which repurpose automotive-grade LiDAR for indoor/outdoor robotics, contributed significantly to higher margins.
- Revenue from robotics-related LiDAR jumped 87% YoY to 73.4 million yuan, with shipments doubling to nearly 12,000 units.
- The company secured a landmark deal with Mammotion to supply 1.2 million LiDAR units for robotic lawn mowers over three years—the largest such deal in the sector.
- RoboSense is expanding its robotics footprint under a new AI strategy, now partnering with 20 robotics firms including Unitree and Lingbao CASBOT.
- In the robotaxi segment, RoboSense inked mass production deals with major players like DiDi, Pony.ai, and GAC, providing all-solid-state LiDAR for next-gen models.
- The company claims partnerships with over 90% of the global robotaxi and robotruck makers, positioning itself strongly in both mobility and robotics sectors.
3. North Texas Company Partners with Aurora to Launch Autonomous Vehicle Workforce Program
- Aurora Innovation, known for completing the first fully driverless freight run in the U.S. on I-45 between Dallas and Houston, is now expanding its focus to workforce development.
- The company has partnered with On the Road Garage, a tech-focused collision repair business based in North Texas, to launch a national training initiative for AV industry careers.
- The program, named OTR Advanced Vehicle Technology—Powered by Aurora, is designed to provide apprenticeships and upskilling opportunities for workers from diverse backgrounds.
- The curriculum includes training in autonomous vehicle repair, ADAS calibration, EV technologies, diagnostics, and terminal operations, supported by Aurora’s technical input.
- The initiative is backed by Champion Impact Capital and aims to address labor shortages while promoting equitable access to high-tech mobility careers.
- Participants will gain hands-on experience with Aurora Driver technology and pursue industry-recognized credentials through On the Road Garage’s apprenticeship model.
- The program is intended to serve as a scalable, national model for inclusive workforce development in emerging transportation technologies.
- Aurora emphasizes that this effort aligns with long-term goals around safety, scalability, and sustainability in the AV sector.
Aurora and On the Road Garage have launched a national AV workforce training program to prepare diverse technicians for the autonomous vehicle and ADAS ecosystem.
4. Kodiak Announces Delivery of Two Additional Customer-Owned and -Operated Driverless Trucks to Atlas; Launches Driverless Service Up To 24/7
- Kodiak Robotics has delivered two more autonomous trucks to Atlas Energy Solutions, bringing Atlas’s total to four Kodiak Driver-powered vehicles in operation.
- The delivery is part of a 100-truck order Atlas placed to automate sand transport logistics within the Permian Basin, supporting its Dune Express system.
- The driverless trucks operate up to 24/7, stopping only for refueling and maintenance, and have already completed over 800 deliveries and 1,600 hours of unmanned driving.
- Atlas emphasized the partnership’s strategic value in addressing challenges such as driver shortages and harsh operating environments.
- The trucks are powered by Kodiak Driver, an AI-based autonomous technology stack capable of operating in varied conditions including nighttime driving.
- Kodiak’s Driver as a Service model allows customers to pay per mile or per vehicle for autonomous operations and support, promoting scalability.
- Kodiak views the operational experience gained in the Permian Basin as foundational to expanding into broader commercial freight applications.
- The milestone marks a significant advance in long-haul autonomy, demonstrating Kodiak’s readiness to support high-utilization, real-world logistics networks.
Kodiak expands its commercial deployment with Atlas by launching 24/7 autonomous truck operations, reinforcing the scalability of its AI-driven freight technology.
5. Innoviz unveils new LiDAR for smart city applications
- Innoviz Technologies has launched the InnovizSMART Long-Range LiDAR sensor, targeting smart city applications such as urban mobility, traffic systems, security, robotics, and aerial platforms.
- The sensor offers automotive-grade performance, including long-range detection up to 400 meters, blockage resilience, a uniform field of view, and Power over Ethernet (PoE) for ease of deployment.
- Designed with privacy in mind, InnovizSMART Long-Range captures spatial data without identifying personal characteristics, meeting emerging global privacy standards.
- Innoviz is repurposing its core automotive LiDAR technology to enable safer, smarter infrastructure, reflecting strong market demand and its innovation-driven strategy.
- CEO Omer Keilaf emphasized that the sensor brings the robustness of vehicle-grade systems into the smart infrastructure domain.
- Innoviz maintains a healthy financial position, with more cash than debt, and has seen a 36% share price gain over the past six months.
- Despite receiving a Nasdaq non-compliance notice for trading below $1, the company remains listed and has until September 22, 2025, to meet the minimum bid price requirement.
- Innoviz remains a global Tier-1 supplier in the automotive LiDAR space, actively contributing to autonomous vehicle and smart infrastructure advancements across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Innoviz expands into smart city infrastructure with its new long-range LiDAR sensor, leveraging automotive-grade technology to support intelligent, privacy-conscious urban systems.
*Contents above are the opinion of ChatGPT, not an individual nor company
