Google does the hardware well too. They built their own lidar to reduce cost compared to velodyne by 90%. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/01/googles-waymo-i

Google does the hardware well too. They built their own lidar to reduce cost compared to velodyne by 90%. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/01/googles-waymo-invests-in-lidar-technology-cuts-costs-by-90-percent/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/01/googles-waymo-invests-i... They also built a second narrowly focused longer range lidar that can be automatically pointed at the ROI of objects visuslly detected beyond the range of velodyne's ~200m. https://medium.com/waymo/introducing-waymos-suite-of-custom-built-self-driving-hardware-c47d1714563 https://medium.com/waymo/introducing-waymos-suite-of-custom-... Both are used on their vehicles. If you have better hardware it makes the software problems higher up the stack easier.