LG Innotek will manufacture Aeva's lidar for a European automaker from 2028

On the car program, LG Innotek's job is manufacturing. It does not design the lidar chip, and the customer contract belongs to Aeva ^[8][9]. Aeva contributes its own chip and signal processing, and LG Innotek contributes optical component manufacturing ^[9]. Omni is the first product the two have unveiled since the collaboration began ^[6].

The stake went from 45.2 billion won to about 73 billion won ^[10]. That is a gain of 27.8 billion won, or 61.5% ^[2][1], close to the roughly 60% that industry officials cited, according to Sedaily ^[1]. The valuation uses both the current share price and the current exchange rate ^[10], so it moves with each of them. LG Innotek has sold no shares, and the gain is a valuation profit only ^[11].

In LG Innotek's plan, robots come a year before cars ^[3]. Omni is 85 millimeters across, covers 360 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees vertically, and reaches 80 meters ^[5]. It is meant for logistics robots that work alongside people in warehouses and for automated guided vehicles ^[5]. The Korean company already had a lidar business, centered on automobiles ^[6]. Aeva adds a robot product and a car program whose supply period runs through 2030 ^[7].

The schedule is where the case could break. If Atlas Ultra reaches mass production in 2028 ^[8] and supply stops when the contract period ends in 2030 ^[7], LG Innotek gets at most three calendar years of output on the program ^[3]. A one-year slip would cut that by a third ^[3]. Omni could also stall in validation this half and push robot volume past next year ^[4]. A fall in Aeva's shares would shrink the 27.8 billion won ^[2]. That would hit LG Innotek's balance sheet but leave its production line as it is.

I think the production role is worth more to LG Innotek than the stake, though only the stake has a market price. Valuing the line would take Atlas Ultra units per year and a build price per unit, and the report includes neither. The counter-case starts from the fact that the exclusivity belongs to Aeva ^[7]. On that view LG Innotek is a manufacturer Aeva could in principle replace, and the equity is the more durable claim. "Our strategic relationship with Aeva has been in place for more than a year, and the collaboration is proceeding as planned," an LG Innotek official said ^[12]. The view fails if the 2028 Atlas Ultra target moves or Omni's trial shipments slip out of the second half ^[8][4].