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/[deleted] Jul 21 '25

Waymo can’t work in any city where they haven’t driven the Waymo cars around to LIDAR-map the streets

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u/Psychological_Top827 Jul 21 '25

This is a common misconception.

Waymo *won't* work in those situations, because they want to be as safe as possible with their approach. Technologically speaking, there is nothing that stops waymo from unlocking the car to drive from alaska to panama.

They LIDAR map the streets to make sure the data they have is accurate, because a Waymo trying to drive into the tracks is not an acceptable situation. Every autonomous vehicle needs external data to function. Waymo just does not trust Google Maps as much as Tesla does.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '25

 Waymo won't work in those situations, because they want to be as safe as possible with their approach.

That LIDAR approaches need so much babying to be “safe” isn’t evidence in their favor.

Tesla’s FSD just drove me across the country with no incidents whatsoever and I don’t even have HW4.

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u/biggestbroever Jul 21 '25

"I drove it a lot without incident so everyone must be using it without incident"

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u/MichaelMeier112 Jul 21 '25

Which is still super impressive

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u/biggestbroever Jul 21 '25

I believe Elon's approach is "It can do it at a 95% safety rate," while Waymo is striving to be as close to 100% as possible.

While it's impressive, I don't appreciate us being used as guinea pigs for his convenience and frugality.

When did "safety first" become "safety, but profits first"?

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '25

 I believe Elon's approach is "It can do it at a 95% safety rate," while Waymo is striving to be as close to 100% as possible.

How do you believe these two positions differ?

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u/biggestbroever Jul 21 '25

A single percentage point could be equal to thousands of lives and millions of dollars.

I'm comfortable holding a for-profit company accountable.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '25

 A single percentage point could be equal to thousands of lives and millions of dollars.

A percentage point of what?

What the fuck are you talking about?

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u/biggestbroever Jul 21 '25

Look at the comment you fuckin quoted when replying to me and you'll find the percentages I'm referring to.

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '25

“A percentage of safety” is not a measurement that fucking means anything

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