Cepton, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPTN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Mitch Hourtienne: Yes. Tom, this is Mitch. I’ll just add, once you see the vehicles on the road, which Hull just talked about, we have orders for over 10,000 units this year, so that puts them on the road, late this year, early next year. That’s really the final proof point, right, for these companies that have made claims of design wins and projections. So, that’s what we are working towards. Once you are integrated into the vehicle, especially like we are behind the windshield, it’s very hard for any competitor to get to that location or replace that socket. So, these design wins with OEMs are really on the order of 5 to 10 years, minimum.

Tom Narayan: Right. And so sorry, last one I have is, in an environment where, let’s say, lidar becomes required, right, for vehicles for safety kind of like how we have with airbags, rear-view mirrors, that sort of thing, do you view that as a positive or a negative and that could that create an incentive for tons of competitors to come into space, or perhaps it becomes more commoditized where pricing comes down? How do you see that world developing, or is it just great for you guys, because it’s not winner take all, but the better guys win out and you guys could be beneficiaries of that?

Jun Pei: Well, having — if it’s already a commonplace to have lidar in cars, if that’s what you’re referring to, and to the extent they could be even regulated into a car safety device, I think that’s always a good thing for us. We’re one of the front runners in the lidar business. And when you use the word commoditized, actually, in automotive business, like Mitch said, it’s really, really hard to get into a socket there, has to go through a very long process to get yourself established. So, having a foothold into this space, as long as the space is expanding, we’re going to enjoy that benefit.

Mitch Hourtienne: Yes. I think, I’d just add, it’ll follow a similar path as radar and camera. It took them 15 to 20 years to establish so called commoditized where OEMs had a handful of qualified suppliers to choose from. So, I think, we’re very far from that situation, I would say, at least 10 to 15 years. So, these winners that launch are going to be the winners for the next decade.

Hull Xu: Yes. And I’ll add on the ASP front. I think, Tom, that was part of your question also. We do expect ASP to come down as this becomes proliferated, right? And as a technology company in the valley, and that’s what we’re good at, which is, in doing our engineering work to bring the cost down. And I’ll point to the fact that we have already taped out our second ASIC, which will dramatically reduce some of the component costing in our current version and our next generation products.

Operator: The next question comes from Samik Chatterjee with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Samik Chatterjee: I guess, if I can start, I think you mentioned, Hull, you mentioned the visibility that you have in relation to production — the series production with about six months of visibility and 10,000 units as the order pipeline there. Just wondering if that stuff that we should read that as sort of the 10k unit volume in terms of series production over a six-month period? And does that give you a little more visibility about what the take rate on sort of the options that the OEM is planning for in relation to ADAS relative to their vehicles, does that give you any more stuff — details in terms of what the OEM is thinking about in relation to attach of that era solution on the platforms you’re on? And I have a quick follow-up as well. Thank you.