Luminar's new high-volume factory starts production
Automotive technology company Luminar has completed the build-out and bring-up of its new highly automated, high-volume manufacturing facility in Monterrey, Mexico.
The first Luminar Iris sensors out of this new facility are beginning to ship to the company's high-volume series production customer in preparation for the start of production by end of this year to support vehicle launches.
“Industrialization is the fundamental challenge to enable and scale with our high volume series production wins. The successful bring-up of the automated factory is a major milestone and continues to show we can execute. This enables an increase in capacity by well over an order of magnitude as compared to our existing, manual line to meet our growing automaker requirements on volume,” says Austin Russell, founder and CEO of Luminar in a press release.
The new dedicated facility for high-volume production of Luminar’s sensors is operated by EMS provider Celestica. This new facility measures 118,000 square feet and will have an initial capacity for up to 250,000 sensors per year, expandable to approximately 500,000 sensors per year. The facility features 40,000 square feet of cleanroom space.
Celestica is also in the process of building an additional 200,000 square feet extension to the dedicated facility for Luminar, which will enable testing for performance and quality and will provide the flexibility for future capacity expansion into the millions of sensors annually.
Construction of the facility began in July of 2022 and high-volume line installation began in December of last year. The company brought this new high-volume line online in conjunction with Celestica at the end of the first quarter this year, ahead of prior guidance provided for a second-quarter start.
The new facility is now scheduled to complete a validation process throughout the second half of 2023 to meet automakers’ standards and requirements for large-scale, global vehicle launches. Celestica also operates an existing low-volume production line for Luminar in a separate facility in Monterrey, Mexico.
