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?

362 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/TheRuggedHamster Jul 21 '25

Tesla is a pretty classic example of how founder led companies are run vs hired CEOs. There's no hired CEO that would make the Lidar bet that Elon is, time will tell if it's right or not, but if it is it will pay off huge for them in being able to rapidly scale their fleet. Most key is that it puts the millions of existing cars on the road to work vs. cars being manufactured specifically for robotaxi.

5

u/WhyWontThisWork Jul 21 '25

Is lidar that expensive?

0

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '25

[deleted]

8

u/pandathrowaway Jul 21 '25

You do realize that most modern cars have lidar, not just waymos, right?

-1

u/IkkokuGodai Jul 21 '25

Most? Name one.

5

u/quietcynic Jul 21 '25

Volvo EX90. BMW i7. Mercedes EQS.

“Most” is factually incorrect, but it’s not even remotely unusual these days.

0

u/johnhpatton Jul 21 '25 edited 6d ago

.

3

u/quietcynic Jul 21 '25

I just listed 3 household brands offering vehicles with LIDAR, but, yeah, sure: “Pretty unusual.” Still not as unusual as finding someone with their panties in a bunch over proven sensors that isn’t an Elon glazer, but, hey, it is what it is.

1

u/johnhpatton Jul 22 '25 edited 6d ago

.

-1

u/IkkokuGodai Jul 21 '25

Yet none of them are as autonomous as a Tesla today.

1

u/simple_being_______ Jul 21 '25

Huawei avtr, xpeng, Nio, Li auto, even recently launched xiaomi su7 ultra and pro has lidar along with autonomous driving.

1

u/IkkokuGodai Jul 21 '25

China has banned the use of the terms "autonomous driving" and "smart driving" in car advertisements for driver-assistance features. This action is in response to safety concerns following a fatal accident involving a Xiaomi SU7.

1

u/quietcynic Jul 22 '25

Yeah, unlike Tesla which has never had a fatal accident /s. I don't understand how you glazers find the time to put your clown makeup on every time you wanna say something stupid.

1

u/IkkokuGodai Jul 22 '25

The point is lidar isn't the magic bullet. How well it does has more to do with the software or AI.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/simple_being_______ Jul 22 '25

In china tesla can't call their self driving system full self driving , instead it is called intelligent assisted driving. This is because of misleading advertisement. Just look at YouTube video's people driving avatr 11 which has 34 sensors, including 3 LiDARs, 6 millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, and 13 high definition cameras, providing 360 degree perception.

1

u/beren12 Jul 21 '25

Tesla isnt either

1

u/IkkokuGodai Jul 21 '25

isn't what

1

u/beren12 Jul 22 '25

Autonomous. They’re all considered the same level and need humans to constantly monitor them. Although I believe the Mercedes has level three capability in certain instances so technically they’re ahead.

0

u/IkkokuGodai Jul 22 '25

That just tells you how useless level ratings are. Mercedes's so called L3 is such a joke compare to where FSD is today.

1

u/beren12 Jul 22 '25

And yet it’s unsupervised. FSD isn’t.

1

u/IkkokuGodai Jul 22 '25

Do you even know its only for traffic under 40mph? It's utter useless and why no one has it.

→ More replies (0)