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The Xpeng P7 electric vehicle is displayed outside the New York Stock Exchange in New York, USA
Jeenah Moon / Bloomberg
Chinese manufacturer of electric vehicles
XPeng
increases his autonomous driving game. On Friday, the company announced a collaboration with the Lidar Livox company.
Lidar is a laser radar used to help activate autonomous driving technology.
Livox is unlisted and is Xpeng’s first partner (ticker: XPEV) in lidar technology. Livox being selected by a major Chinese EV maker as a partner is not necessarily bad news for listed lidar players, including
Veoneer
(VNE) and
Luminar Technologies
(LAZR). As cars get smarter and have more control over the driving experience, lidar and other sensors are expected to proliferate.
However, not everyone is sold on Lidar yet.
You’re here
(TSLA), the world’s most valuable automaker, does not yet use lidar sensors. When asked by Morgan Stanley Adam Jonas if the company would use Lidar technology if it was free, CEO Elon Musk replied, “I think even if it was free we wouldn’t. Tesla has its own processors, sensors and software for stand-alone applications.
Other sensors that can enable autonomous driving applications include optical cameras and ordinary radars. Right now, Lidar tends to be a more expensive option, but the cost of sensors is going down.
XPeng calls itself a smart EV producer and is investing heavily in autonomous driving technology. It was listed on the stock exchange in late August 2020, selling shares for $ 15. The stock closed 2020 at $ 42.83, up about 185%, far better than the comparable gains of the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
and
S&P 500.
XPeng went public recently, and is popular among analysts covering stocks. Two-thirds of them value the stock at purchase. The average purchase ratio of Dow Jones companies is around 57%.
Barron’s is more cautious, writing recently that Chinese EV producers’ valuations are too high and suggesting investors are taking profits. This article appeared in mid-December when XPeng was trading around $ 44.
XPeng is trading for around 15 times estimated sales in 2021. Tesla, for comparison, is trading around 14.5 times that number. XPeng peers
NIO
(NIO) and
Li Auto
(LI) trade around 15 times and 8 times estimated sales in 2021, respectively.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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