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Tesla didn't use LIDAR because it is more expensive [0]. Quoting Musk: > Anyone relying on LIDAR is doomed. Doomed. Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’

• ohgodplsno 5y ago
  "You'll see" is the perfect Musk sign for "I have no idea what I'm talking about and I'm frankly just interested in a few suckers believing me."
• lordnacho 5y ago
  How much more expensive are we talking? Also won't it get cheaper with time, like the batteries?
  • fundatus 5y ago
    Every Pro iPhone has one. So it already got pretty cheap by now. Looking at Mercedes' Level 3 Autopilot tech you can also see how well you can integrate the sensors into the front of a car.
    • mensetmanusman 5y ago
      Short range VCSEL is very different than the automotive rotary lidar systems.
  • vngzs 5y ago
    At the time of comment, a LiDAR rig would cost around $10,000. A few years before that, they were more like $100,000. Presumably the cameras are much cheaper. I would be willing to bet that production efficiencies will be found that will eventually drive that cost down significantly.
• leobg 5y ago
  Cost is not the only point he was making. The problem you need to solve is not just “Is there something?”, but also “What is it? And where is it going to move?”. LIDAR cannot do that. Or at least if you get LIDAR to do that, then you would have also been able to get it done with a camera, in which case you wouldn’t have needed LIDAR in the first place. LIDAR certainly is the low hanging fruit when it comes to the firmer question though (i.e. what is there in my path right now).
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    But AI and ML isn't as good as a human brain or maybe any brain. I imagine the gap has to be closed with better and multiple sensors or make fundamental leaps in computing technology.
  • therouwboat 5y ago
    LIDAR works in dark and in bad weather, its useful to know there is something in front of you, even if you dont know what it is.
    • fastball 5y ago
      What bad weather are you talking about where LiDAR works well? It notably does not perform well (or really at all) in rain/snow/fog. You might be thinking of radar, which Tesla is also no longer putting in their cars.
      • CamperBob2 5y ago
        I've never understood their reasoning. It sounds like a Most Interesting Man in the World commercial: "I don't always tackle the hardest AI problems known to mankind, but when I do, I tie one hand behind my back by not fusing data from every possible sensor I can find in the DigiKey catalog." IR lidar would be pretty useful in rain and fog, I'd think. But I'd rather have all three -- lidar, radar, and visual. Hell, throw in ultrasonic sonar too. That's what Kalman filters are for. Maybe then the system will notice that it's about to ram a fire truck.