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I think originally it was because of the cost of the equipment. Elon and team saw how expensive lidar was and thought they needed to be able to solve the proble

I think originally it was because of the cost of the equipment. Elon and team saw how expensive lidar was and thought they needed to be able to solve the problem without it. However lidar has dropped drastically in price, so at this point I think they aren't using it just for ego reasons (i.e., we claimed it was possible to get self driving without lidar in the past, so we have to continue down that path)

dharmab 5y ago
Also they marketed autonomous driving features as future software updates (including a discount/price hike for early/later adopters). Early adopters would be unhappy if future features required additional hardware.
- mdoms 5y ago
  Not just marketed, but sold, and for a very pretty penny.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  They upgraded hardware in the past to support FSD customers, so I’m not sure they’re completely against it. If it was, say, just a $500 decision to make it completely viable, I don’t think Tesla would hesitate. But the $500 lidars can’t do what needs to be done.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
Wasn't another factor the physical size of the lidar units? Part of Tesla's schtick is making normal or even attractive looking cars (as opposed to the "alien bug" aesthetic EVs were synonymous with at the time) and that's a lot harder to do with a big lidar unit on top.
mandeepj 5y ago
> so at this point I think they aren't using it just for ego reasons If their engineering is driven by ego (most of us think - it is) then - are they really engineers? We all know it’s coming from Top - Elon, in this case.
panick21 5y ago
Lidar might have dropped in price, but please show me the Lidar that can produce that quality output, is incredibly cheap, easy to manufacture and integrate into the car and available millions of time by next year. And it would be great if it something that almost never broke as things that move a lot tend to. As far as I know static lidar are nowhere near as good. Then if the difference in quality is not actually that great, doing the development effort once will scale to millions of cars the next few years. So we are literally talking many, many years of millions of lidars produced and integrated (and not replacing other sensors) to maybe have a slightly better outcome. However that depends on your sensor fusion and how the lidar handles weather conditions and other complexities. But I am sure its all ego.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  > And it would be great if it something that almost never broke as things that move a lot tend to. As far as I know static lidar are nowhere near as good. Keep in mind you're saying this about something that attaches to a car, which already has dozens or hundreds of parts that rotate at hundreds or thousands of RPM. > Then if the difference in quality is not actually that great, doing the development effort once will scale to millions of cars the next few years The adage "do things that don't scale" comes to mind. If your options are "have tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles" or "have none", I'm not sure how the second is better. And we know that hundreds of thousands or even millions of lidar units are being produced (cruise and waymo and co have multiple units per vehicle and collectively hundreds of thousands of vehicles).
  - panick21 5y ago
    Adding more rotating parts is exactly what you are trying to avoid. For example, go look at how Tesla designed the heating and cooling system. The integrated all the different streams of hot and cold in one system duplicate these parts that can break easily. In some cases it can simply not be avoided of course but you better make sure that you really need it if you are gone add it to millions of cars. > cruise and waymo and co have multiple units per vehicle and collectively hundreds of thousands of vehicles Waymo has vehicle count of a few 1000s as far as I know. I don't know about cruise but I don't think the have even 100k vehicles. Please show me a source. And even if that were the case, the build those fleets of quite a long time and the cost per vehicle they currently have is nowhere near close to what would be possible for a car like the Model 3 or future cheaper models. Margins in car industry are incredibly tight, car companies invest gigantic amount of capital to remove a few $ per car. These vehicles need to be able to be produced at a run rate of millions per year. If you are proposing to add something that cost 100-1000$ that is a absolute killer. In addition its an additional part that can hold up your production. This current chip shortage is a perfect example where having a Lidar would just introduce a whole host of new chips that might be in a shortage.

dharmab 5y ago

Also they marketed autonomous driving features as future software updates (including a discount/price hike for early/later adopters). Early adopters would be unhappy if future features required additional hardware.

mdoms 5y ago
Not just marketed, but sold, and for a very pretty penny.
Robotbeat 5y ago
They upgraded hardware in the past to support FSD customers, so I’m not sure they’re completely against it. If it was, say, just a $500 decision to make it completely viable, I don’t think Tesla would hesitate. But the $500 lidars can’t do what needs to be done.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

Wasn't another factor the physical size of the lidar units? Part of Tesla's schtick is making normal or even attractive looking cars (as opposed to the "alien bug" aesthetic EVs were synonymous with at the time) and that's a lot harder to do with a big lidar unit on top.

mandeepj 5y ago

> so at this point I think they aren't using it just for ego reasons If their engineering is driven by ego (most of us think - it is) then - are they really engineers? We all know it’s coming from Top - Elon, in this case.

panick21 5y ago

Lidar might have dropped in price, but please show me the Lidar that can produce that quality output, is incredibly cheap, easy to manufacture and integrate into the car and available millions of time by next year. And it would be great if it something that almost never broke as things that move a lot tend to. As far as I know static lidar are nowhere near as good. Then if the difference in quality is not actually that great, doing the development effort once will scale to millions of cars the next few years. So we are literally talking many, many years of millions of lidars produced and integrated (and not replacing other sensors) to maybe have a slightly better outcome. However that depends on your sensor fusion and how the lidar handles weather conditions and other complexities. But I am sure its all ego.

joshuamorton 5y ago
> And it would be great if it something that almost never broke as things that move a lot tend to. As far as I know static lidar are nowhere near as good. Keep in mind you're saying this about something that attaches to a car, which already has dozens or hundreds of parts that rotate at hundreds or thousands of RPM. > Then if the difference in quality is not actually that great, doing the development effort once will scale to millions of cars the next few years The adage "do things that don't scale" comes to mind. If your options are "have tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles" or "have none", I'm not sure how the second is better. And we know that hundreds of thousands or even millions of lidar units are being produced (cruise and waymo and co have multiple units per vehicle and collectively hundreds of thousands of vehicles).
- panick21 5y ago
  Adding more rotating parts is exactly what you are trying to avoid. For example, go look at how Tesla designed the heating and cooling system. The integrated all the different streams of hot and cold in one system duplicate these parts that can break easily. In some cases it can simply not be avoided of course but you better make sure that you really need it if you are gone add it to millions of cars. > cruise and waymo and co have multiple units per vehicle and collectively hundreds of thousands of vehicles Waymo has vehicle count of a few 1000s as far as I know. I don't know about cruise but I don't think the have even 100k vehicles. Please show me a source. And even if that were the case, the build those fleets of quite a long time and the cost per vehicle they currently have is nowhere near close to what would be possible for a car like the Model 3 or future cheaper models. Margins in car industry are incredibly tight, car companies invest gigantic amount of capital to remove a few $ per car. These vehicles need to be able to be produced at a run rate of millions per year. If you are proposing to add something that cost 100-1000$ that is a absolute killer. In addition its an additional part that can hold up your production. This current chip shortage is a perfect example where having a Lidar would just introduce a whole host of new chips that might be in a shortage.