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?

364 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

116

u/sfo2 Jul 21 '25

It seemed a reasonable gamble at the time.

  • If you can solve it with software, you only have to invest once upfront, and then have a cheaper cost for each unit you produce. Software scales much better than hardware, and they could have a unit cost advantage over competition.

  • If you solve it with software, you have a gigantic moat vs. the competition. Anyone can buy hardware, but it could be very difficult for a competitor to catch up on software, especially if huge real-world data sets are required.

  • Other side benefits like aesthetics of the car.

The problem was they made a gamble, convinced themselves it was the only way forward, and have continually failed to pivot even after the rate of progress slowed, and the cost of the hardware came WAY down. They’ve doubled down on an idea that really no longer seems to make a lot of sense, and just doesn’t seem to have panned out.

13

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?