Shares of autonomous driving tech company Luminar surge on Mercedes-Benz deal

Mercedes-Benz said Thursday it plans to use lidar technology from Luminar in its next generation of vehicles, driving shares of the tech start-up 18% higher in trading Thursday morning.

As part of the agreement, the German automaker is expected to acquire up to 1.5 million shares of Luminar over time as milestones are met. The companies also agreed to share data.

Luminar is preparing for serial production of its lidar technology later this year. The companies declined to say when Mercedes-Benz, a unit of Daimler, plans to begin…