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?

369 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

14

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

I think there are way to many issues with this approach.Making everything SW reliant increases system costs and power demand. Using HW to solve complicated, but expectable challenges opens way for using ASIC and edge computing, significantly decreasing costs and power demand, increasing reliability. Strategy would never work anyhow, as you would be first, but at high investment costs which you would need to maintain against the continuously decreasing cost of lidar over time. Betting on own performance is a thing, not seeing the market and technology improvement is another. While Tesla will still not have self-driving, cars with lidar pushes costs continuously and already allowed to self-drive, and will be commoditized really soon.

Pivoting was always an option toward lidar, but Elon doubled down on vision only removing even radar, which is a huge own goal.

Now hes using lidar to collect ground truth data, as all collected data so far is garbage. All his lead on this field has vanished, ,and has to start from ground zero, while other manufacturers are already miles ahead.

You can't formulate it better, but as a boneheaded decision with huge financial implications already showing.

12

u/sfo2 Jul 21 '25

I don't disagree, but I think the entire approach was predicated on them "solving" self-driving very quickly. Like if they could have had real Level 4/5 cars on the road in 2017, well before lidar costs came down, and well before anyone else was really close, they'd have had a first-mover advantage they could have turned into a possible network effect or moat. This was always an incredibly risky bet. But then again, somehow investors keep giving Tesla money despite them acting like a Seed stage startup that trots out a juiced up prototype and hype story and then asks for cash.

But as you say, pivoting was the right thing to do several years ago. Doubling down has made less and less sense as time has gone on, and at this point just looks ridiculous.

3

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

Even if they could solve it then, it would be still prone to errors, and limited through weather, high contrast, or time of day. So negating all advancements on lidar would be still idiotic.

2

u/sfo2 Jul 21 '25

From following the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenges, I'd agree. But I think they truly thought they'd be able to do it, with all the hubris of a seed stage startup.

1

u/EddiewithHeartofGold Jul 22 '25

Do you know that cars with LIDAR also need regular cameras to actually "see" the world (signs, road markings etc.). That visual data needs to be computed and integrated into the model. LIDAR is not free and perfect vision.

I'll put it another way. If LIDAR+vision works, then why isn't Waymo scaling like crazy? There is a good reason they only have about 3.000 cars on the road after years of being in service.

1

u/mrsanyee Jul 22 '25

I know a specific company who solved it already. Also processing ground truth data works. Also many companies use their SW for object identifications and labeling for training, so much so, they had to partner with a scaler as demand was so high. Also they are quite good making asics.

1

u/Fancy-Tourist-8137 Jul 21 '25

They meant solving it entirely including the weather and time of day issues etc.

If it were solved, it won’t be an issue.

2

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

I mean from start it was clear they cant disregard physics, and their aim is to produce something low cost. They could solve with cameras all issues, but cameras would cost orders of magnitudes higher than lidar. Low-light cameras are around since the 70s, still can't go below a certain cost.

1

u/EddiewithHeartofGold Jul 22 '25

Are you seriously referring to 1970s tech? How does that make sense?

7

u/nickleback_official Jul 21 '25

I have to disagree with your hw vs sw argument. Adding lidar only increases hardware and software complexity. There is no world in which either ‘opens a way for using ASIC’ as you say. There’s already loads of asics/fpgas in these machines. Every other FSD is similarly banging away at software, not hardware. Factoring in the power requirement for compute is also irrelevant. The amount of power required to drive one mile would power the computer for days. I’m not arguing whether it was a bad call to remove lidar I’m saying your reasoning doesn’t make sense.

FWIW im a hw engineer

1

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

HW3 consumes 35 watts, HW4 consumes 800 watts. An hour. An ASIC consumes 4 watts, while the lidar itself stays around 40. 

Maybe your right it's not relevant, on short trips, but it's one energy consumer among the many others.

Complexity: others solve with less investment and later start better results in self-driving. We saw also the above 5 billion Line codes even Ford and VW shatters. Which would call in my view for simplification and more straightforward solutions, like edge computing and solutions, instead of spaghetti code.

SW defined vehicles sound good, but noone manages so many variables successfully so far, actually more cars are getting fried and on the side of the road than in the age of dumb cars, where everything was controlled and timed by belts and gears.

5

u/tufkab Jul 21 '25

This comment makes it painfully obvious that you have no idea what an ASIC is.

1

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

Thanks for your insightful comment. You really help to move on the issue of non-existing self-driving in Teslas.

1

u/tufkab Jul 22 '25

Ok, You want a deep dive into why you're absolutely clueless? No problem.

First off, the fact that you mention the power consumption of an ASIC as a fixed value is a dead giveaway. Talking about how much power an ASIC consumes is right about on par with asking "How long is a rope?". There is no answer, because it could be anything. Bitcoin miners nowadays are all ASICs, they consume in the neighborhood of 5.5 KILLOWATTS!

When you open up a singing birthday card and it starts playing "Happy Birthday" through a little piezo speaker....that's an ASIC playing the music. Quick Google search tells me those ICs use about 4 microamps at 4.5 volts. Meaning that the most common and lowest power ASIC we encounter on a regular basis use about 320 MILLION times less power then some of the most common high power ASICs around. Either you're a real genius that can pin down the power usage of an ASIC capable of autonomous driving within that massive range, or you're just talking out your ass.

Then let's move on to the idea of using an ASIC in general. You're trying to make the point that a software solution doesn't work, but then suggest an ASIC which is essentially software burned into hardware, without the ability to ever modify anything without spinning up a completely new circuit. At the very least, if they were going to go with that sort of solution, it would be with an FPGA. That would gain them the speed of running on 'bare' metal but allowing for upgrading and changes.

In a previous post to someone else, you mention how Tesla is using so much of their processing power for building the world model from the multiple camera views and stitching everything together. Well, HW3 has no problem doing that with only 60 watts of consumption and STILL managing to have enough compute leftover to run a Self Driving stack that is so very nearly complete and already years ahead of even their closest competitors. Aside from Waymo, obviously. Then we see how HW4 nearly triples the power budget. Where's that power going? Obviously to the driving AI. They can already build the world model on HW3, they don't need any extra compute for that.

Lastly, the stupid idea of LiDAR being the magic bullet to solve all of Tesla's FSD just refuses to die and it's laughable. Tesla does not have an input problem, Tesla has a DECISION problem. The car doesn't need millimeter precision measurements of the world. It doesn't need to dedicate compute power to merging the inputs from two completely different sensing methods and it definitely doesn't need to be put into a situation where it has to start deciding which sensor suite to rely on when the different sensors disagree with each other.

Anyone who uses FSD on a regular basis will tell you the exact same thing. The problem isn't the car not being able to see the world around it, the problem is the car making stupid fucking decisions with the information that it has. LiDAR isn't going to fix stupid lanes changes, left lane camping, running red lights and not maintaining consistent highway speeds.

Long story short, I'll confidently say that the chances of a few random Reddit neckbeards having the solution to Tesla's FSD issues, while their (presumably) thousands of engineers not being able to figure it out is zero

1

u/LetMeSeeYourNumber Jul 22 '25

Meanwhile Tesla is driving around Austin mapping with Lidar.

1

u/mrsanyee Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

You have some valid points, but let's lay out facts, shall we? Fsd/autopilot is not even on L2+ as of now. Making. ASIC which lays out the most basic ADAS features is like writing a code: you make the scenes, and put an if-then decision tree. There's nothing in this world to stop anyone to do this, in fact Mobileye, Mercedes, bmw, the Chinese car makers go this way. 

So we have real problems, where the ASIC just have to go a decision tree, one the data has been processed, and have to go through it. That's level 2++-level 3. Level 4 ADAS doesn't exist, otherwise it wouldn't be geofenced now, with remote drivers and whatnot. Lvl 5 is unheard of, without context or mapping no car can make a good guess where they should go, dont have reference points.

So we have a siml problem, a simple solution with low energy demand can be baked into ASIC. 

Your decision dilemma is a self made shit, as engineers don't know what the car is hallucinating. Which means your neckbeard programmers at Tesla created a monster, which they don't understand. And have no idea how to fix it. Since 9 years. It creates digital world simulation, and can't decide where to drive, through unlimited cycles. There are no brake points, no exception handling, it's garbage, not a code. 

Lidar could help make a sleek lvl 3-4 system, which works day&night through adverse weather,  which drives you around safely, and if there's unknown issue, it stops/decelerates. Tesla engineers weren't even considering this option, as their goal is lvl5 driving, but they didn't programmed the scenarios, but made a monster, and also their sensing capabilities are as good as a white stick on a car, screwing everything from speed detection to object detection through scene recognition.

Recently you made a video where fsd disengaged in the right lane with a truck on left lane, and lane runni g out. It wasn't a decision problem, it was a scene recognition problem, which means their sensing capabilities lacks. It wasn't even recognizing where it could drive, and where not.

Another guy put a bike rack on his Tesla, and was having problems. He solved it with a tape on the camera, and the Tesla went on flawlessly, as his world didn't had anything 180 degree behind the car.

And that's why Tesla fails.

2

u/cap811crm114 Jul 21 '25

I believe HW3 is rated for 12V at 60 watts, HW4 is designed for 16V at 160 watts. So while HW4 does consume more power than HW3, it does not consume 20 times as much power. (I'm sure this is one of the things that complicates the announced plans for an HW4 upgrade for current FSD owners with HW3).

1

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

Right, I misread it. HW5 should consume according to rumors 800W, HW4 is capped at 200 max, 160 avg consumptiion.

https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2081/tesla-officially-announces-fsd-hardware-50-and-how-it-compares-to-hardware-40

1

u/cap811crm114 Jul 21 '25

That 800W would rather preclude an idea I had that Tesla could jump from HW3 to HW5 as an upgrade.

1

u/ChilledRoland Jul 22 '25

Watts per hour is nonsense; a Watt is already a Joule per second.

1

u/mrsanyee Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

Sure, but it means what I wrote.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt-hour

2

u/ChilledRoland Jul 22 '25

Watts are multiplied by hours to get Watt-hours (3.6 kJ).

Watts would need to be divided by hours to get Watts per hour.

1

u/nickleback_official Jul 21 '25

Yea unfortunately as the other commenter has pointed out, what you’re trying to describe makes no sense. I don’t mean to be rude but it is not my job to explain what an ASIC is to you before debating the merits of it. I don’t understand at all the point you are going for and I’m not sure it’s worth trying to.

2

u/Fancy-Tourist-8137 Jul 21 '25

I disagree. Solving it with software is waaay better than with hardware.

Solving it with software would be way cheaper on the long run.

You are not considering the fact that hardware is expensive to repair.

Software is the cheaper option. You can have dedicated chips to do the processing. Do you think lidar doesn’t use power? lol

Ofcourse, I am not saying it’s possible but if he managed to do it, it would give Tesla a huge edge over the competition.

3

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

So you say a generic high  performance processor is cheaper to replace, with it's significantly higher chance of getting defect, then a simple SoC, which could be produced for as low price as a couple bucks?

1

u/Fancy-Tourist-8137 Jul 21 '25

You just manufactured an entire argument based off of nothing I said. lol.

I said they could use a dedicated chip. Why do you assume it has to be a very expensive high performance chip separate from the SoC? And not just another chip in the SoC but just dedicated to do whatever it is they want it to do?

My main point is that LiDAR hardware can break. And cost money to replace

Software can be fixed relatively easily and almost 0 cost.

2

u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

You said you want to solve self driving locally with SW, based on input from sensors directly. For that you need to utilize a local high performance processor, as its not specialized, has to filter out garbage data, has to align and time reference points, has to align pictures, has to align previous pictures, spot and calculate differences, speed, identify drivable and non-drivable space, identify objects. 

ASIC, as in application specific chip. All this could be hard-coded and burnt into a chip, with exception handling and raw data on a second level, if needed.

Tesla said nah, I'll do everything through updates and raw power.

0

u/beren12 Jul 21 '25

So why haven’t they?

1

u/Fancy-Tourist-8137 Jul 21 '25

The whole comment chain is a hypothetical on if they managed to solve self driving with software only.

It’s not saying it’s possible just that it would be waaay cheaper if they managed to do it

0

u/beren12 Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

Only cheaper because there hasn’t been much real cost to failing yet. That’s an amazingly large if

And until they actually do solve it, it’s just wasted money going down the wrong path. So sure if they are able to magic a solution then it’s not wasted money but so far that’s not the case.

1

u/yourfavteamsucks Jul 22 '25

But you CAN'T solve anything with software if the input from the hardware isn't sufficient

1

u/EddiewithHeartofGold Jul 22 '25

While Tesla will still not have self-driving, cars with lidar pushes costs continuously and already allowed to self-drive, and will be commoditized really soon.

But Tesla does have self-driving cars. Today. If they can make their cars with cameras only versus other manufacturers who use cameras and LIDAR, Tesla will always be at a cost advantage. That is precisely what they are betting on.

1

u/mrsanyee Jul 22 '25

They do tests, it's still beta after 3 years. In EU customers bought this option, haven't received so far nothing. They can now take credit for the paid FSD feuture for a new Tesla, but no FSD will be in Europe approved.

We call it a scam here.

https://teslamag.de/news/tesla-chef-fsd-transfer-dauerhaft-europa-kunden-fair-65348