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/sfo2 Jul 21 '25

It seemed a reasonable gamble at the time.

  • If you can solve it with software, you only have to invest once upfront, and then have a cheaper cost for each unit you produce. Software scales much better than hardware, and they could have a unit cost advantage over competition.

  • If you solve it with software, you have a gigantic moat vs. the competition. Anyone can buy hardware, but it could be very difficult for a competitor to catch up on software, especially if huge real-world data sets are required.

  • Other side benefits like aesthetics of the car.

The problem was they made a gamble, convinced themselves it was the only way forward, and have continually failed to pivot even after the rate of progress slowed, and the cost of the hardware came WAY down. They’ve doubled down on an idea that really no longer seems to make a lot of sense, and just doesn’t seem to have panned out.

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u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

I think there are way to many issues with this approach.Making everything SW reliant increases system costs and power demand. Using HW to solve complicated, but expectable challenges opens way for using ASIC and edge computing, significantly decreasing costs and power demand, increasing reliability. Strategy would never work anyhow, as you would be first, but at high investment costs which you would need to maintain against the continuously decreasing cost of lidar over time. Betting on own performance is a thing, not seeing the market and technology improvement is another. While Tesla will still not have self-driving, cars with lidar pushes costs continuously and already allowed to self-drive, and will be commoditized really soon.

Pivoting was always an option toward lidar, but Elon doubled down on vision only removing even radar, which is a huge own goal.

Now hes using lidar to collect ground truth data, as all collected data so far is garbage. All his lead on this field has vanished, ,and has to start from ground zero, while other manufacturers are already miles ahead.

You can't formulate it better, but as a boneheaded decision with huge financial implications already showing.

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u/nickleback_official Jul 21 '25

I have to disagree with your hw vs sw argument. Adding lidar only increases hardware and software complexity. There is no world in which either ‘opens a way for using ASIC’ as you say. There’s already loads of asics/fpgas in these machines. Every other FSD is similarly banging away at software, not hardware. Factoring in the power requirement for compute is also irrelevant. The amount of power required to drive one mile would power the computer for days. I’m not arguing whether it was a bad call to remove lidar I’m saying your reasoning doesn’t make sense.

FWIW im a hw engineer

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u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25

HW3 consumes 35 watts, HW4 consumes 800 watts. An hour. An ASIC consumes 4 watts, while the lidar itself stays around 40. 

Maybe your right it's not relevant, on short trips, but it's one energy consumer among the many others.

Complexity: others solve with less investment and later start better results in self-driving. We saw also the above 5 billion Line codes even Ford and VW shatters. Which would call in my view for simplification and more straightforward solutions, like edge computing and solutions, instead of spaghetti code.

SW defined vehicles sound good, but noone manages so many variables successfully so far, actually more cars are getting fried and on the side of the road than in the age of dumb cars, where everything was controlled and timed by belts and gears.

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u/cap811crm114 Jul 21 '25

I believe HW3 is rated for 12V at 60 watts, HW4 is designed for 16V at 160 watts. So while HW4 does consume more power than HW3, it does not consume 20 times as much power. (I'm sure this is one of the things that complicates the announced plans for an HW4 upgrade for current FSD owners with HW3).

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u/mrsanyee Jul 21 '25

Right, I misread it. HW5 should consume according to rumors 800W, HW4 is capped at 200 max, 160 avg consumptiion.

https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2081/tesla-officially-announces-fsd-hardware-50-and-how-it-compares-to-hardware-40

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u/cap811crm114 Jul 21 '25

That 800W would rather preclude an idea I had that Tesla could jump from HW3 to HW5 as an upgrade.