Lidar Necessity Debate

Arguments for and against lidar in autonomous vehicles, claims that cameras alone are insufficient, examples of accidents avoided due to lidar, cost considerations for sensor suites

The debate over lidar necessity highlights a fundamental split between Tesla’s cost-driven, vision-only strategy and Waymo’s safety-first, multi-modal sensor approach. Proponents of a camera-only system argue that sensors need only be "good enough" for superior AI to interpret, citing the high cost of lidar as a barrier to consumer affordability. However, critics point to technical limitations such as poor dynamic range and showcase instances where lidar detected pedestrians long before cameras could, questioning why any developer would eschew redundant technology that provides a "demonstrably safe" cushion for rare, "long tail" events. Ultimately, the discussion centers on whether true autonomy can be achieved through software intelligence alone or if it requires the resilient, unified inputs of cameras, radar, and lidar working in tandem.

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Tesla never had lidar so they didn't abandon it.

Also, Tesla started FSD in 2016. The very core of their strategy was (and is) to sell $40k car with hardware capable of running FSD.

Cameras are super cheap, FSD chip is reasonably inexpensive. Lidar is not. Maybe today the cost isn't completely prohibitive (I think it still is, because you need multiple lidars) but it certainly was for the first 8 years of FSD program.

Tesla just didn't have the luxury of adding $50k to the cost of the car for the hardware, the way Waymo did. And they didn't have sugar daddy (Google) willing to burn several billions a year for many years.

So the Waymo approach was not an option for Tesla.

And given that in Austin they just reached parity with Waymo (i.e. completely unsupervised robotaxi service), they are not doing badly.

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Elon in shambles

> Our experience as the only company operating a fully autonomous service at this scale has reinforced a fundamental truth: demonstrably safe AI requires equally resilient inputs. This deep understanding of real-world requirements is why the Waymo Driver utilizes a custom, multi-modal sensing suite where high-resolution cameras, advanced imaging radar, and lidar work as a unified system. Using these diverse inputs, the Waymo Driver can confidently navigate the "long tail" of one-in-a-million events we regularly encounter when driving millions of miles a week, leaving nothing to the imagination of a single lens.

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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.

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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.

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What doesn’t make sense to me is that the cameras are no where as good as human eyes. The dynamic range sucks, it doesn’t put down a visor or where sunglasses to deal with beaming light, resolution is much worse, etc. why not invest in the cameras themselves if this is your claim?

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Especially the part where the cameras do not meet minimum vision requirements [1] in many states where it operates such as California and Texas.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43605034

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For which car? The older the car (hardware) version the worse it is. I've never had any front camera blinding issues with a 2022 car (HW3).

The thing to remember about cameras is what you see in an image/display is not what the camera sees. Processing the image reduces the dynamic range but FSD could work off of the raw sensor data.

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It wouldn't keep them from equipping _new_ models with additional sensors, spinning a story around how this helps them train the camera-only AI, or whatever.

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Human inner ear is worse than a $3 IMU in your average smartphone in literally every way. And that IMU also has a magnetometer in it.

Beating human sensors wasn't hard for over a decade now. The problem is that sensors are worthless. Self-driving lives and dies by AI - all the sensors need to be is "good enough".

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> The problem is that sensors are worthless

Well, in TFA the far more successful manufacturer of self driving cars is saying you're wrong. I think they're in much better position to know than you :)

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Involved? Yes. Necessary? Pretty sure no.

If it makes you happy, you can read "only vision" as "no lidar or radar." Cars already have microphones and IMUs.

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Waymo has posted videos of accidents they've avoided purely because their lidar picked up on a pedestrian before their cameras saw anything.

A favorite of mine:
https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov/status/1900219562437861685

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Moreover, why draw a hard line on vision only when there is existing technology is available to augment it? It's not like they have to develop 3 novel technologies.

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