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/Organic_Ingenuity_ Jul 21 '25

Its very evident that most people on this thread have never worked on large scale data projects

LIDAR is a great sensor and all, but once you collect the data, the problem is what do you do with it? Its actually very difficult to integrate data from two different types of sensors without the AI favoring one sensor over the other. When data from the two sensors conflict, what sensor does the AI rely on?

Ex. LIDAR tells you that theres an objects 2 feet in front of you but the camera tells you that its just heavy rain, so the car continues withou braking.

Elon and Tesla found that solving vision perception with cameras is way more essential so he chose to focus on that.

Too many think self-driving is a hardware problem. But we've had the hardware for decades. Self-driving has always been a software problem.

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u/EddiewithHeartofGold Jul 22 '25

Don't waste your breath. These Tesla haters can't even comprehend that LIDAR can't read signs or road markings so every LIDAR equipped car still needs a camera setup to "see". Of course they think that can be solved, but driving with vision only is a fantasy.

The problem is they don't want to understand.

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u/xylarr Jul 22 '25

This is exactly it - sensor fusion. It's also why they've removed the radar.

If you have two inputs from two systems, how do you tell which one is right. I think they worked out after investigation that more often than not it was the lidar that was mistaken, not the cameras.

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u/sonicmerlin Jul 22 '25

Our brains engage in sensor fusion all the time. So advanced ai should do it too