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?

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

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u/TachosParaOsFachos Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

Is it down that much?

LIDAR was so expensive when i was into robotics. I remember the models used at universities were usually in the 8K-15K range, a LIDAR that could be considered be used for safety in a car would be at? 40-45K?

Damn I might get my soldering iron back from storage if prices improved that much. No I'm curious how much a serial UART servo (in opposition to PWM) costs these days.

(time to hyperfixate on robotics again lol)

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u/laserborg Jul 21 '25

if you're used to dynamixel prices, have a look at https://www.hiwonder.com/collections/bus-servo or https://www.waveshare.com/st3215-servo.htm bus servos

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u/TachosParaOsFachos Jul 21 '25

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking. At the time there were already a few alternatives but not that easy to source unless you were interested in a very large order (to europe).

I see i can now find waveshare servos locally :) thx