We all know that Musk has been quite adamant that he is against LIDAR. And a few years back, I think it was somewhat understandable. Back then, LIDAR was clumsy and expensive. There was just no way that Tesla could afford to put LIDAR in every car they sell, not to mention the issue of ruining the aerodynamics and aesthetics of the cars with a LIDAR tower on the roof. So I think back then, it made sense for Tesla to go the camera vision only route. After all, if they could manage to achieve the same result with camera vision only for a fraction of the cost of LIDAR, why not?
But today, these problems with LIDAR are pretty much solved. LIDAR is cheaper and smaller. Tesla could integrate LIDAR in the car in a way that does not ruin the aerodynamics or the aesthetics of the car at a much more affordable cost. Plus, there is no question that even if Tesla does manage to achieve great things with camera vision alone, LIDAR would offer more redundancy and make true Full Self-Driving much more robust. In other words, even if camera vision works, why not have that extra redundancy of camera vision, radar and LIDAR to give the car an even fuller picture of the environment to make FSD even better? There is no downside. So I am thinking that Tesla will eventually cave in a few years and add LIDAR to the FSD hardware.
Thoughts?
But today, these problems with LIDAR are pretty much solved. LIDAR is cheaper and smaller. Tesla could integrate LIDAR in the car in a way that does not ruin the aerodynamics or the aesthetics of the car at a much more affordable cost. Plus, there is no question that even if Tesla does manage to achieve great things with camera vision alone, LIDAR would offer more redundancy and make true Full Self-Driving much more robust. In other words, even if camera vision works, why not have that extra redundancy of camera vision, radar and LIDAR to give the car an even fuller picture of the environment to make FSD even better? There is no downside. So I am thinking that Tesla will eventually cave in a few years and add LIDAR to the FSD hardware.
Thoughts?