How Luminar’s doomed Volvo deal helped drag the company into bankruptcy
In early 2023, Luminar was riding high. After going public during the pandemic and scoring a key deal with Volvo, the company had added Mercedes-Benz and Polestar as customers of its “lifesaving” lidar sensors. Founder and CEO Austin Russell called it an “inflection point,” as Luminar prepped to have those sensors integrated into the first production vehicles. Volvo in particular was all in on the technology. The Swedish automaker, which spent decades building a brand around the idea of making the safest cars, was the first to jump at integrating the laser-based sensors in its vehicles. Volvo initially tapped Luminar to provide 39,500 lidar sensors over the life of a deal signed in 2020. In 2021, Volvo upped that to 673,000. And in 2022, Volvo upped it again, this time to 1.1…
