With the preparation of intelligent driving into industrialization and commercialization, LiDAR has become an indispensable environmental sensor with its excellent performance and has developed rapidly in hardware technology and related application algorithms. This paper introduces the key technologies of LiDAR hardware by using LiDAR scanning method and related technology as the entry point, discussing the principle, characteristics and current status of mechanical, hybrid and all-solid-state automotive LiDAR. Three kinds of task-oriented vehicle Li-DAR application algorithms, point cloud segmentation, target tracking and recognition, simultaneous location and mapping, are summarized. The analysis shows that the vehicle LiDAR will further become solid-state, intelligent and networked in order to reduce costs, improve performance and meet intelligent driving requirements; the pursuit of application algorithm research is real-time, efficient and reliable.