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Truly. I don't understand why Tesla fans think camera/lidar fusion is unsolvable but camera/camera fusion is a non-issue.

by xnx 9mo ago

hamdingers 9mo ago
Because they bought a Tesla with only cameras on it. Admitting this would be admitting their Tesla will never be self driving.
- xnx 9mo ago
  Add a tow hitch to Waymos and any car can be autonomous!
- baggachipz 9mo ago
  I bought mine with cameras and a radar, which they then deprecated and left an unused. Even though autopilot was better when it had radar. Then I realized that this thing would never be self-driving and that its CEO was throwing nazi salutes. Cut my losses and got rid of it. Gotta admit defeat sometimes.
wat10000 9mo ago
Do Tesla fans think that? I've seen plenty of Tesla fans say that lidar is unnecessary (which I tend to agree with), but never that lidar is actively detrimental as Musk says there.
SoftTalker 9mo ago
I mean, humans have only their eyes. And most of them intentionally distract themselves while driving by listening to music, podcasts, playing with their phones, or eating.
- nrclark 9mo ago
  I get your point about camera vs lidar. Humans do have other senses in play while driving though. We have touch/vibration (feeling the road surface texture), hearing, proprioception / acceleration sense, etc. These are all involved for me when I drive a car.
- catigula 9mo ago
  To be fair, humans are fairly poor drivers and generally can't be trusted to drive millions of miles safely.
  - nradov 9mo ago
    Actually humans are fairly good drivers. The average US driver goes almost 2 million miles between causing injury collisions. Take the drunks and drug users out and the numbers for humans look even better.
    - catigula 9mo ago
      Incorrect. Humans are fairly good engineers, so cars are pretty safe nowadays. If you include minor fender-benders and unreported incidents, estimates drop to around 100,000–200,000 miles between any collision event. This is cataclysmically bad for a designed system, which is why targets are super-human, not human.
    - FarmerPotato 9mo ago
      I don't think averages work that way
  - gf000 9mo ago
    Humans are not good drivers when it comes to long, monotonous rides (because we get tired) But (some) humans have the ability to handle difficult situations, and no autonomous system gets anywhere close to that. So this is more of a "robots handle the easy 80% better, but fail hard on the rest of the 20%". Humans have a possibly worse 80% performance, but shine in the 20%.
rhubarbtree 9mo ago
Unsure if you’re trolling, but you haven’t listened to what Tesla are actually saying. Having more sensors is complicating the matter, but yes sure you can do that if you want to. But just using vision simplifies training a huge amount. The more you think about it, the stronger this argument is. Synthesising data is a lot easier if you’re dealing with one fairly homogenous input. But the real point is that cameras are cheap, so you can stick them in many many vehicles and gather vast amounts of data for training. This is why Waymo will lose - either to Tesla or more likely a Chinese car manufacturer. I do not like Elon because I do not think nazi salutes or racism are cool, but I do think Tesla are correct here. Waymo wins for a while, then it dies.
- p_l 9mo ago
  Chinese are going with lidars as well. It's just that the cost of lidars are falling like crazy, with new automotive lidars using phased-array laser optics instead of what waymo started with (mechanically scanned lidars)
- rswail 9mo ago
  Cameras are only "cheap" because of mobile phone camera development, radar/lidar is going through the same process with car and mobile robotics. So the "we can train cheaply because of lots of cameras" falls down when, for example, BYD has all of its cars with lidar for ADAS but can collect the data for training as well as the vision from cameras and whatever other sensors like tyre pressures and suspension readings and all the other sensors that are on a modern car. The argument that we can make the cars cheaper in the future by not collecting the additional data now has been proven wrong by the CN and KR manufacturers. That's also independent of the whole EV side of things.
- xnx 9mo ago
  Tesla doesn't even use good cameras. Compare to https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/ro-on-6th-gen-waymo-driver#:~:text=a%20lower%20cost.-,Vision%20System%20%C2%A0,-The%20Waymo%20Driver%E2%80%99s https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/ro-on-6th-gen-waymo-driver#:~...
- gf000 9mo ago
  That assumes that hardware was/is/will be more expensive than.. simply scaling up data collection and training? Which seems like a very bad assumption, I'm not even sure it was ever true and is getting less and less true.

Truly. I don't understand why Tesla fans think camera/lidar fusion is unsolvable but camera/camera fusion is a non-issue.

by xnx 9mo ago

Truly. I don't understand why Tesla fans think camera/lidar fusion is unsolvable but camera/camera fusion is a non-issue.

hamdingers 9mo ago

Because they bought a Tesla with only cameras on it. Admitting this would be admitting their Tesla will never be self driving.

xnx 9mo ago
Add a tow hitch to Waymos and any car can be autonomous!
baggachipz 9mo ago
I bought mine with cameras and a radar, which they then deprecated and left an unused. Even though autopilot was better when it had radar. Then I realized that this thing would never be self-driving and that its CEO was throwing nazi salutes. Cut my losses and got rid of it. Gotta admit defeat sometimes.

wat10000 9mo ago

Do Tesla fans think that? I've seen plenty of Tesla fans say that lidar is unnecessary (which I tend to agree with), but never that lidar is actively detrimental as Musk says there.

SoftTalker 9mo ago

I mean, humans have only their eyes. And most of them intentionally distract themselves while driving by listening to music, podcasts, playing with their phones, or eating.

nrclark 9mo ago
I get your point about camera vs lidar. Humans do have other senses in play while driving though. We have touch/vibration (feeling the road surface texture), hearing, proprioception / acceleration sense, etc. These are all involved for me when I drive a car.
catigula 9mo ago
To be fair, humans are fairly poor drivers and generally can't be trusted to drive millions of miles safely.
- nradov 9mo ago
  Actually humans are fairly good drivers. The average US driver goes almost 2 million miles between causing injury collisions. Take the drunks and drug users out and the numbers for humans look even better.
  - catigula 9mo ago
    Incorrect. Humans are fairly good engineers, so cars are pretty safe nowadays. If you include minor fender-benders and unreported incidents, estimates drop to around 100,000–200,000 miles between any collision event. This is cataclysmically bad for a designed system, which is why targets are super-human, not human.
  - FarmerPotato 9mo ago
    I don't think averages work that way
- gf000 9mo ago
  Humans are not good drivers when it comes to long, monotonous rides (because we get tired) But (some) humans have the ability to handle difficult situations, and no autonomous system gets anywhere close to that. So this is more of a "robots handle the easy 80% better, but fail hard on the rest of the 20%". Humans have a possibly worse 80% performance, but shine in the 20%.

rhubarbtree 9mo ago

Unsure if you’re trolling, but you haven’t listened to what Tesla are actually saying. Having more sensors is complicating the matter, but yes sure you can do that if you want to. But just using vision simplifies training a huge amount. The more you think about it, the stronger this argument is. Synthesising data is a lot easier if you’re dealing with one fairly homogenous input. But the real point is that cameras are cheap, so you can stick them in many many vehicles and gather vast amounts of data for training. This is why Waymo will lose - either to Tesla or more likely a Chinese car manufacturer. I do not like Elon because I do not think nazi salutes or racism are cool, but I do think Tesla are correct here. Waymo wins for a while, then it dies.

p_l 9mo ago
Chinese are going with lidars as well. It's just that the cost of lidars are falling like crazy, with new automotive lidars using phased-array laser optics instead of what waymo started with (mechanically scanned lidars)
rswail 9mo ago
Cameras are only "cheap" because of mobile phone camera development, radar/lidar is going through the same process with car and mobile robotics. So the "we can train cheaply because of lots of cameras" falls down when, for example, BYD has all of its cars with lidar for ADAS but can collect the data for training as well as the vision from cameras and whatever other sensors like tyre pressures and suspension readings and all the other sensors that are on a modern car. The argument that we can make the cars cheaper in the future by not collecting the additional data now has been proven wrong by the CN and KR manufacturers. That's also independent of the whole EV side of things.
xnx 9mo ago
Tesla doesn't even use good cameras. Compare to https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/ro-on-6th-gen-waymo-driver#:~:text=a%20lower%20cost.-,Vision%20System%20%C2%A0,-The%20Waymo%20Driver%E2%80%99s https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/ro-on-6th-gen-waymo-driver#:~...
gf000 9mo ago
That assumes that hardware was/is/will be more expensive than.. simply scaling up data collection and training? Which seems like a very bad assumption, I'm not even sure it was ever true and is getting less and less true.