I think if you wanted to get into the self-driving car arena and were a startup on a budget, and you wanted to play with 3D LIDAR - then the place to hit up for

I think if you wanted to get into the self-driving car arena and were a startup on a budget, and you wanted to play with 3D LIDAR - then the place to hit up for one would be Ebay. Lately I've seen used Velodyne 3D LIDAR units being sold on the site for (compared to new) dirt cheap. Granted, much more expensive than used SICK or Hokuyo 2D sensors - but that would be expected. The fact that they are being sold on Ebay at all is a fairly new and interesting development; the question becomes "where are they coming from"? That is, what is the secondhand source they are being pulled from. In the case of SICK and Hokuyo sensors, it has generally been industry or research. For Velodyne sensors, they were explicitly made for self-driving vehicles (though they've found other markets since). It makes me wonder if one or more the established self-driving vehicle companies are shedding the tech in favor of some other system...?