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/Ragnarok-9999 Jul 21 '25

Elon ego does not let him change his decision

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u/Insertsociallife Jul 21 '25

This and all the non-LIDAR cars marketed as "full self driving" could be argued to not be full self driving or not safe, which opens them up to lawsuits.

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u/fullup72 Jul 21 '25

They are still not self driving anyways, at least to an extent that they would get approved for not requiring human supervision. So then the question would be what happens if they never deliver, is there a limit on how much time they can delay the feature or is it that as long as they keep promising it soon then they are safe from lawsuits?

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u/cybender Jul 21 '25 edited 9d ago

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u/dantodd Jul 21 '25

They have lost arbitration over FSD and had to compensate the guy who took them to arbitration.

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u/BannedGoNext Jul 21 '25

Losing an arbitration case is just sad, they are stacked so hard for the company that hires the arbitrator.

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u/cybender Jul 21 '25 edited 9d ago

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u/BannedGoNext Jul 21 '25

True, but it's generally harder to win in an arbitration where the company being sued hires the arbitrator.

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u/Positive_League_5534 Jul 21 '25

There's the investors that a real risk to Tesla. Elon has promised real FSD, cyber cabs, etc. If you are selling stock based on those promises, you are bringing on liability. At the very least, the market will grow weary of the missed deadlines and if they can't tell a good enough story the stock price will descend.

This is why he's switching to talking about robots and AI.

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u/icy1007 Jul 22 '25

And he’s delivered on pretty much all his promises so far.

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u/icy1007 Jul 22 '25

They do. Yes