Company: LIDRW
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001437749-25-004906
Chunk: 273

Company: AEye, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1C
Chunk 273
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 prior headquarters lease to its fair value.

As a result of the implementation of our revised strategic plan and the impairment review of our long-lived assets, we recorded restructuring charges of $19,153 for the year ended December 31, 2023 primarily relating to one-time employee termination benefits, inventory and other current asset write-downs, losses on purchase commitments, and impairment and disposal charges on our long-lived assets.  We recorded restructuring gains of $368 for the year ended December 31, 2024, primarily relating to the net gain on the termination of the prior headquarters lease, losses on purchase commitments and one-time termination benefits.

Gross Margin

Our gross margins will depend on numerous factors, including, among others, the selling price of our products, pricing of our development contracts with customers, royalty rates on licenses we grant to our customers, unit volumes, product mix, component costs, personnel costs, contract manufacturing costs, overhead costs, and product features. Our gross margins have in the past and may continue to be negatively impacted by inventory write-downs. As an example, in 2023, we recorded inventory write-downs of $7,005 relating to the transition to certain higher grade components in our automotive products as well as the winding down of our legacy product line for the Non-Automotive market. In the future, we expect to generate attractive gross margins from licensing our lidar technology and software to our Tier 1 partners in the Automotive market. We also anticipate being able to leverage on our foundation in the Automotive market to move to other markets.

To date, our revenue has primarily been generated through development contracts with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, as well as unit sales of our products to Non-Automotive customers. These development contracts primarily focus on customization of our proprietary 4SightTM product capabilities to our customers’ applications, typically involving software implementation to assist with sensor connection and control, customization of scan patterns, and enhancement of particular perception capabilities to meet specific customer needs. In general, development contracts that require more complex configurations have higher prices. We expect development contracts to remain a significant part of our business in the near-term, but represent a smaller share of our total revenue over time, as we increase our focus on technology licensing in the Automotive market and over time leverage the economies of scale we achieve to move into other markets including the Non-Automotive market.

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Investment and Innovation

Our