Good observation. Compounding progress in other sensors (high-resolution stereo cameras, GPS, radar/proximity) has also been important, but none more so than l

Good observation. Compounding progress in other sensors (high-resolution stereo cameras, GPS, radar/proximity) has also been important, but none more so than lidar. Also, increased on-board processing power for computer vision/machine learning. In the early 2000s we had nowhere near the onboard compute that we have now.