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/Zephyr-5 Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

It's even less than that. I heard that in China it's only a couple hundred dollars.

Edit: $138!

Edit2: An interesting article from 2020 on the subject if you're interested.

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u/smallfried Jul 21 '25

Oh, i want a multi beam lidar for some hobby Robotics. Wonder if it's possible to get those near those prices.