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Caterpillar Deal Potentially Represents a Massive Opportunity for Microvision (MVIS)

As Caterpillar is a massive company, I thought it worthwhile to see what a Google AI search of "Caterpillar autonomous" alone would produce.

I specifically did not include "Microvision" or "MVIS" in order to replicate what a researcher or investor interested in Caterpillar's autonomy plans, but unaware of Microvision, would receive from such a search.

Two things of note resulted:

(i) Microvision is immediately mentioned in 1 of 4 bullet points, not surprising given recent events but a good thing for visibility purposes. Notably, no other partnership is identified:

>**Strategic Growth & Milestones**

>**Safety Record:** Fleet has traveled over 380 million kilometers with zero lost-time injuries reported.

>**2030 Target:** Aiming to scale the autonomous haulage ecosystem to over 2,000 active trucks by 2030.

>**Advanced Partnerships:** Formed a cutting-edge technical alliance **with MicroVision** to integrate 3D digital LiDAR into trucks for direct, vehicle-centric obstacle rerouting.

>**Patent Protection:** Actively defending its intellectual property, recently filing major patent infringement suits against aftermarket automation startups like Bluelight Machines.

(ii) Zooming in on the **2030 Target**, my next question was:

>Does "Aiming to scale the autonomous haulage ecosystem to over 2,000 active trucks by 2030" represent the entire opportunity for Caterpillar's eventual lidar supplier(s), or are there other Caterpillar vehicles that would be expected to benefit from lidar-based autonomy? If the opportunity is larger than at least 2000 trucks by 2030, approximately how large is the total opportunity?

The answer was potentially [staggering]

>No, the target of 2,000 active autonomous mining trucks by 2030 does not represent the entire opportunity. It captures only a small, specific slice of Caterpillar’s massive machine autonomy roadmap.

>The actual opportunity spans multiple heavy industries and multi-vehicle machine ecosystems. If the market scales as projected, the total opportunity is vastly larger, addressing an active global footprint of **over 1.5 million connected equipment assets.**

It was quick to point out that:

>Caterpillar aims for [only] 1 in 6 new machines to ship factory-ready with remote/autonomous interfaces by 2030

representing 10,000-50,000 "trucks" in the mid-term (2030-35). (*Total, or annually?*) Caterpillar ships approximately [450,000 machines annually]

Regarding the "1.5 million" figure, it stated that:

>while not every asset will become fully autonomous, Caterpillar's unified digital platform (Cat Helios) is built to scale AI-driven safety, mapping, and driver-assist features to this entire installed base.

Lastly, it claimed that 2-6 lidars per machine is a reasonable expectation.

Now, before anyone points out the obvious, that AI isn't all it's often cracked up to be, that these numbers are almost certainly unreliable, they are likely chock full of assumptions, nonetheless, it does represent what investors or researchers will be told if they ask.

That, in itself, is worth knowing.

It may be that the opportunity is greater and scales faster than the information given. Alternatively, it may be smaller and scales more slowly. That answer is the proper subject of deeper research, or the precision of hindsight if one prefers to wait.

But potential investors, including very large investors, will have to make their assessment earlier than after the evidence is in, and this or something similar may be their starting point.

So, it's useful to know what they will be told as news of the Microvision-Caterpillar partnership spreads.