EXCLUSIVE: Self-Driving Startup And Food Delivery Pilot Program With Ford Has Ended. Here Are The Findings

Cepton, Inc CPTN completed a 6-month autonomous shuttle pilot program.

What Happened? Cepton, a Silicon Valley innovator and leader in high-performance MMT lidar solutions, completed a 6-month autonomous shuttle pilot program in collaboration with Ford Motor Company F. 

After six months of delivering food to senior citizens across Metro Detroit, the self-driving pilot program concluded.

Cepton's lidar technology helped to support autonomous driving capabilities and traffic data analytics. 

The autonomous Ford shuttle was fitted with Cepton's MMT-powered directional lidar sensors to deliver food to the doorsteps of senior citizens living in the automotive heartland. Cepton also installed lidars along the shuttle's route in "sensor nodes" to provide real-time traffic data to support the shuttle's safe operation. 

Why Does It Matter? The collaboration builds upon the previous cooperation between the leading global automaker and the Silicon Valley-based lidar innovator. 

Ford partnered with Cepton for nearly six years, utilizing the Company's lidar in the research and development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and smart city projects. 

Cepton CEO and co-founder Dr. Jun Pei said: "The future of mobility is not just about smarter cars, but also the building of an overall smarter ecosystem to keep up with and support vehicle intelligence. The Cepton team is dedicated to driving scalable lidar adoption through continuous innovation and bringing transformational intelligence to the next generation of vehicles, systems, spaces, and cities. With that, we aim to contribute to a future where safe, autonomous transportation is accessible to everyone." 

Cepton's high-performance MMT lidar provides high-resolution 3D scanning of environments for both near and long-range applications. 

Cepton's OEM-validated lidar approach helped to achieve an optimal balance between performance, reliability, and cost.

Price Action: CPTN shares traded higher by 9.09% at $1.92 in the premarket on the last check Thursday.

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