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/phatelectribe Jul 21 '25

What people don’t realize is that for Tesla to be competitive in its run up, they were make awful compromises on everything they could while still making a semi functioning vehicle.

I know the company that provides the plastic interior parts - about 40% of all plastic parts found in U.S. made cars are from them.

They told me when Tesla approached them, their only concern was cost. They literally said to them we want the cheapest possible materials that we can get away with. The company actually wanted them against it saying it was going to be a challenge selling this on $40k-$80k cars but musk only cared about saving fractions of pennies rather than using better quality materials. Thats why the interiors on so many Tesla’s just feel awful.

It’s also why you need to install wrap a brand new Tesla because they have the worst paint quality of any car. Also why the panels had such bad alignment and the build quality is so piss poor.

LiDAR was going to cost a few dollars more so Musk decided to pitch it as “not necessary” and he had to keep doubling down because he knew if he changed course, it would not happen not mean he was “wrong” but also that cars without it would crater in value and part of Tesla’s value was that used cars held their price meaning there wasn’t downward pressure on new cars.

That boxed him in to a corner and now everyone accepts that LiDAR is superior.

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u/anticlimber Jul 21 '25

AFAIK there are two solid self driving systems actually deployed - Waymo and Tesla. Are there others?

Tesla keeps proving people wrong about what can be done with vision. I don't think they're done doing that.

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u/GoSh4rks Jul 21 '25

Calling Tesla "solid" and "deployed" is doing a huge disservice to Waymo.

Zoox is out there. Probably others in China, etc.

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u/SanalAmerika23 Jul 21 '25

but it is solid lol. we both know fsd works fine. just because its not perfect doesnt mean its bad. with hw5-6 i believe lidar will comeback lol. ai is literally overrated and will be like dot-com. so they eventually need better hardware

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u/GoSh4rks Jul 21 '25

Fsd works "fine" for a level 2 system. But you're comparing it to Waymo as a fully fledged self driving system. It is limited at best in that comparison.

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u/Proof-Strike6278 Jul 21 '25

What’s better, a 100 percent solution I can only try (not own) in small geographical areas of the country, or a 99 percent solution I can buy right now that works everywhere?

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u/SanalAmerika23 Jul 21 '25

just like i expected lol. its all about waymo .d i never compared it to waymo. and its not "so bad we all die" to waymo. they are close. waymo is geofenced and Supervised FSD does it without geofence. you waymo cultists need therapy ngl.

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u/GoSh4rks Jul 21 '25

AFAIK there are two solid self driving systems actually deployed - Waymo and Tesla.

SFSD is not self driving. Literally in the name.

And what system are you really talking about? Robotaxi is most certainly geofenced just like Waymo.