David Hall, Founder of the Lidar Industry, Launches a New Company – Hall Lidar Inc. in Montana
BOZEMAN, Mont., Feb. 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — David Hall continues to make his mark on the lidar industry as he launches Hall Lidar Inc., or HLi (www.halllidar.com) in Bozeman, Montana. Hall, the original inventor of the lidar technology for mapping and the autonomous vehicle industry, is eager to offer quality lidar for customers, as he sees growing demand. “When combined with recent AI advances, the technology has unlimited potential. We have just scratched the surface for what it can do in the automotive industry,” says Hall. “For example, lidar can improve vehicle safety when used in Advanced Driver Assistant Systems, (ADAS,) cutting down on pedestrian and bicycle fatalities. I want to see this happen. I’m ready to provide top-notch quality American products for companies to buy and develop safer vehicles.”
The company will have a central office in Bozeman, Montana, with operations and test facilities in Alameda, California. Test facilities are key to proving the accuracy and efficacy of vehicle braking equipped with ADAS systems, and Hall will initially leverage a team of engineers at his Alameda facilities. To grow, Hall chose Montana as the place to expand the lidar business, counting on the attraction of the ski slopes and the relatively lower cost of living.
HLi will offer state-of-the-art, high performance lidar for the automotive autonomous vehicle and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) market as well as lidar for robotics, architectural mapping, smart city applications, security, and more. The company will also sell a variety of lidar derivative products as well. The company is well positioned to enter the lidar market, which has a projected market cap of more than $16 billion by 2034 by some estimates.
ADAS systems have transformed the automotive industry by enhancing vehicle safety through various features like adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, blind-spot detection, and automatic emergency braking, but in Hall’s opinion, these systems can be improved dramatically. For example, in the future we may see systems that can detect objects earlier allowing vehicles to brake sooner and avoid more crashes and fatalities of pedestrians and bicyclists. Unlike cameras that struggle in low light or with obscured objects, lidar can accurately detect objects like pedestrians, cyclists, and obstacles at long distances, even in challenging weather conditions, and in darkness, providing vital information for timely intervention.
Lidar is now seeing a rise in demand from developers of autonomous car systems, providers of 3D mapping applications and companies which want to implement ADAS systems into current vehicles. NHTSA is currently considering requiring safety requirements of new cars to include higher level ADAS systems.
About David Hall
Hall invented the use of lidar for vehicle navigation after entering the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005, when he found the need to come up with a solution to blind corners and the limitations of cameras. Hall invented the lidar technology to allow autonomous vehicles to “see in 3D,” by producing a 3D point cloud picture of their surroundings. Hall spun an array of 64 lasers in a rotary system creating a 360-degree view. His early invention, the HDL64, was sold for mapping, research, and the development of autonomous cars. The HDL64 set off the AV industry with early customers including Google, Ford, GM, Zoox, Cruise, and Caterpillar.
Hall continues to innovate in the lidar product segment as well as invent and expand into other technologies and industries. In addition to lidar, Hall is currently developing businesses based on marine vessel stabilization technology and a third area of exploration, an electric rocket launch system.
Hall Philanthropy
David and Marta Hall founded the non-profit Hall Art and Technology Foundation which began activity for the public with a museum opening in Alameda, California in June, 2024.
Contact: Emma Selvig, Singer Associates
emma@singersf.com
SOURCE Hall Lidar Inc.
