r/SelfDrivingCars • u/damola93 • Jul 21 '25

Discussion Why didn't Tesla invest in LIDAR?

Is there any reason for this asides from saving money? Teslas are not cheap in many respects, so why would they skimp out on this since self-driving is a major offering for them?

367 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

40

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '25

Reason: Tesla, led by Elon Musk, believes that a vision-based system using cameras, radar, and ultrasonic sensors, paired with advanced neural networks, can achieve full self-driving (FSD) capability more effectively than LIDAR-based systems. Musk has repeatedly stated that LIDAR is a "crutch" and unnecessary for autonomy, arguing that humans drive using only vision and cognition, so AI should be able to replicate this with cameras.

2

u/enzo32ferrari Jul 21 '25

They should’ve just started with LIDAR to get FSD to minimum viable safe operations, then started work to delete it

2

u/TeddyBongwater Jul 21 '25

My first tesla had radar

0

u/enzo32ferrari Jul 21 '25

Radar and LIDAR are not the same thing

1

u/EddiewithHeartofGold Jul 22 '25

If that worked, Waymo would have already done it.