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Hi-def 360 LIDAR that companies like Waymo or Aurora are absolutely not ready to put into millions of vehicles for a price that makes it anywhere close to reaso

by nickik 5y ago

Hi-def 360 LIDAR that companies like Waymo or Aurora are absolutely not ready to put into millions of vehicles for a price that makes it anywhere close to reasonable. Multiple companies that have announced Lidar have later removed it for the cars. The Lidar that are actually currently deployed that you can 'just' get from suppliers is of the not of the same quality and we have yet to actually see real high volume cars with 360 Lidar on any true mass market car.

marvin 5y ago
Elon Musk is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. I'd be willing to bet that Tesla continuously looks at the state of LIDAR tech and evaluates whether it's at the point where it will be feasible to put it in a mass-market car in two years. People keep getting hung up on their vision strategy because it sharply diverges from that of all other players, but it's really just tackling the "no one knows how to do this and no one really tries" part of the problem first. No level 5 autonomous driving system will ever ship without really good computer vision.
- justapassenger 5y ago
  Tesla cannot go into LIDAR without huge destruction of the company valuation and pissing off large base of customers. They've been selling a car ready for FSD for almost 5 years now, for a huge extra margin. LIDAR retrofit is impossible, and admitting that they need it means there's huge amount of customers who paid for product that will never exists. Refunds will not only put a huge dent on finance, but it'll also further damage brand of Tesla as a player in that space, and Elon as a god-like visionary. Is LIDAR required for self driving? Probably, but it's not certain. But one thing is certain - Tesla is in the corner, and they have to deliver solution without it, using few years old inference HW and 5 years old+ cameras. Selling HW for a problem that doesn't even have a theoretical solution in software, so you don't even know what HW you need, is a bold, bold move.
  - aeternum 5y ago
    It is a bold move, but perhaps we need more of those. How much of the talent in SV is focused on optimizing ad placement or building messaging systems?

by nickik 5y ago

marvin 5y ago

Elon Musk is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. I'd be willing to bet that Tesla continuously looks at the state of LIDAR tech and evaluates whether it's at the point where it will be feasible to put it in a mass-market car in two years. People keep getting hung up on their vision strategy because it sharply diverges from that of all other players, but it's really just tackling the "no one knows how to do this and no one really tries" part of the problem first. No level 5 autonomous driving system will ever ship without really good computer vision.

justapassenger 5y ago
Tesla cannot go into LIDAR without huge destruction of the company valuation and pissing off large base of customers. They've been selling a car ready for FSD for almost 5 years now, for a huge extra margin. LIDAR retrofit is impossible, and admitting that they need it means there's huge amount of customers who paid for product that will never exists. Refunds will not only put a huge dent on finance, but it'll also further damage brand of Tesla as a player in that space, and Elon as a god-like visionary. Is LIDAR required for self driving? Probably, but it's not certain. But one thing is certain - Tesla is in the corner, and they have to deliver solution without it, using few years old inference HW and 5 years old+ cameras. Selling HW for a problem that doesn't even have a theoretical solution in software, so you don't even know what HW you need, is a bold, bold move.
- aeternum 5y ago
  It is a bold move, but perhaps we need more of those. How much of the talent in SV is focused on optimizing ad placement or building messaging systems?