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I'm in automation - robotics mainly. Depends on what you mean by laser welding (LBW/spot/brazing etc.). The tech has existed for many many years. Capital costs are huge. The OEMs got into laser brazing for body-in-white over the last 10ish years for appearance purposes but there is still a bunch of post-work required (sanding). I can think of two applications where laser spot is used in OEM facilities for very small applications. I have yet to see a true LBW application in production. Laser hybrid was all the talk 20 years ago and it did not take off. Laser welding is non-existent in Tier 1/2 supplier manufacturing environments - for North America anyway. Traditional MIG and resistance welding is what you'll see out there.
Again cap costs are huge. Part fitment is critical (costs up). Resources to run this stuff are few and far between - especially in today's labor pool environment. It's super fast but welding applications are usually not the bottleneck in automated manufacturing.
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