Velodyne Moves Production Overseas, Lays Off 140 Employees

Bloomberg reports that Velodyne Lidar was sued for laying off 140 workers with one day’s notice. Velodyne was expected to provide 60 days notice, but instead told employees in a written notice they were being let go because of the pandemic. The ex-employees complaint claims that “had already begun transferring production jobs overseas beginning in the summer of 2019 and had planned to continue doing so prior to the outbreak of Covid-19.”

It appears to be another indication that LiDAR Mega-factory project in San Jose does not go well. Just a year ago, David Hall, Velodyne Founder and then-CEO, said "San Jose has a large and available skilled labor force that, while not price competitive with anywhere in Asia, does a higher quality job than we would get by assembling the units elsewhere."

Silion Valley Business Journal: Velodyne is valued at about $1.8b after raising about $225M from investors including Nikon, Ford, and Baidu.

Update: The Register publishes the lawsuit document.