Venable offices in Washington, D.C. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM

Velodyne LiDAR, the California-based company that builds technology central to how self-driving cars “see” their surroundings, has hired a team from Venable to work as its eyes and ears in Washington.

Venable's new registration for Velodyne, making its first foray in the Washington influence game, was disclosed this week. Velodyne's team at Venable is led by David Strickland, a partner in the firm's regulatory group, who served as head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Obama administration.

Velodyne specializes in so-called lidar sensors—short for light detection and ranging—that use laser pulses to help self-driving cars sketch a 3D, real-time image of their surroundings. The company supplies lidar systems to about 25 automakers and tech companies, according to a 2016 report in USA Today.

The tech publication The Verge has called Strickland the autonomous vehicle industry's most-important lobbyist. Strickland, who's also counsel to Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, was not immediately reached Thursday.

“There are a variety of sensors. I am a simple humble caveman lawyer and not an engineer. You're talking about ultrasonic radar systems, lidar systems and things that are frankly integrated to see the road,” Strickland said in 2016 on the C-SPAN program “Washington Journal.” Additional systems, he said, will allow vehicles to confront conditions—such as whiteouts—where the road is not clearly visible.

Strickland added: “That's the fun thing about this technology right now. Everyone is trying to throw the hardest cases at it—weather in Michigan, driving in a rotary in Boston or the Pittsburgh left. That's sort of the fun part of this—trying to work through all of these anomalies and these regional differences and these harsh conditions to make sure that this technology works.”

Joining him on the lobbying team is another NHTSA veteran, Chan Lieu, who served as director of government affairs, policy and strategic planning at the agency before joining Venable in March 2014 as a senior policy adviser. Lieu spoke at the Velodyne-hosted World Autonomous Vehicle Leadership Summit in December 2016 in Alameda, California.

Venable associate Jared Bomberg, a former counsel to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will also be lobbying for Velodyne on “automotive safety” and “advanced vehicle technology,” according to a disclosure filed Wednesday. Bomberg joined Venable in June from Hogan Lovells, where he was an associate.

Velodyne's lidar sensors were part of Google's early autonomous vehicles, according to a report by The New York Times last year. In 2016, the company received a $150 million investment from Ford and the Chinese company Baidu.

Lidar technology is a centerpiece of a major trade secrets lawsuit in California federal court in which Waymo, Google's self-driving car spin-off, sued Uber Technologies Inc.

Last year, during an interview on Bloomberg LP, Strickland said he expects self-driving cars to first take off in cities.

Asked about estimates that self-driving cars would account for a quarter of miles driven by 2030, he said: “I think it's realistic. You're looking at a range. But I think what you're gonna be thinking about here is vehicles being introduced probably in urban environments—low-speed vehicles, not more than 25 mph, doing livery, taxi-types of things in really congested cities. That's probably going to be the foundation for that estimate.”

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