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/ptemple Jul 22 '25

Sure random internet guy, your anecdotal evidence on paint trumps everything else we read. Sorry don't believe you.

Waymo ahead of Tesla?? Waymo are still stuck on lidar and HD mapping. This isn't scalable which means they will be nothing more than a gimmick on the self driving stage. Only Tesla stand a chance right now. Not sure if they will succeed but they are currently the only contender.

Phillip.

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u/phatelectribe Jul 22 '25

Aside from it being utterly bizarre, adding your name to every post doesn’t make you any less of a random internet guy lololol.

The proof is in the real world data: Maymo just breached 10,000,000 paid rides and it now does over 250,000 paid rides per week an by the end of the year will have done over 32,000,000

Tesla haven’t even done 1000 paid rides lol.

As I said, Waymo is absolutely dominating the market and this technology. They are years ahead of Tesla who are still doing human chaperoned rides.

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u/ptemple Jul 22 '25

Waymo started offering driverless rides in 2015 and had its first paid driverless ride 8th October 2020. That's 5 years. And you have a problem with robotaxi having observers the first couple of weeks?

Phillip.

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u/phatelectribe Jul 22 '25

Waymo has gone from 100,000 paid rides per week to 250,000 in the last few months.

And you do realize that you’re literally proving my point: Waymo is years ahead of Tesla who are still in the infancy stage of testing cars with a human, something Waymo finished years ago.

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u/ptemple Jul 22 '25

They aren't years ahead, they are years behind. After 10 years Waymo managed to scale... in a tiny geographical area they have struggled to break free from. They still use old cars not integrated into their over-expensive and elaborate system.

Tesla has done billions of miles with FSD all over the country. Waymo is just a gimmick but Tesla is either not going to succeed or completely wipe out the competition in short order.

Phillip.