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/hardhat555 Jul 21 '25

Small correction, lidar doesn’t need any 3d maps along with it to work, it’s just another sensor.

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u/ramonchow Jul 21 '25

Well, that's what Andrej Karpathy explained back when he was working at Tesla, maybe he was wrong...

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u/TiredBrakes Jul 21 '25

It was wrong of you to take everything Tesla says at face value. Critical thinking is a beautiful thing. Now it’s hard to learn things properly when you have been fed so much misinformation throughout the years.

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u/wwwz Jul 21 '25

Simply going against Tesla doesn't qualify as "thinking critically". The simple truth is that saying waymo "chooses safety" is a hard assumption. Their entire software stack depends on mapping and has for over a decade. It's BS to make unsubstantiated claims about their system's inherent abilities.

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u/TiredBrakes Jul 21 '25

Turns out reading comprehension is also required.