LiDAR Downmarket: How Hard Will Smart's Comeback Battle Be?

At the smart showroom in Sanlitun, Beijing, a young mom was taking her kid to experience the newly arrived #1. She pointed at the added LiDAR on the roof and asked the salesperson, "Can this detect children?" The salesperson quickly switched to technical jargon, but his shifty eyes reminded me of an engineer from an autonomous driving company I interviewed a week ago. He told me privately that for many automakers, the LiDAR "optional rate is under 10%, mainly used to pile on specs and tell stories."