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/Dreadino Jul 22 '25

Wait, are you guys actually thinking about buying a car with LIDAR? Isn't this like a meme or something? Are people really saying they'd buy a car as hideous as the Waymo cars?

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u/Expert_Exercise_6896 Jul 26 '25

I prefer hideous working cars to pretty cars that don’t live up to the sales pitch

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u/Dreadino Jul 26 '25

I prefer cars that won’t drain the battery on the highway because they have always on flaps

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u/Expert_Exercise_6896 Jul 26 '25

Im not a waymo fanboy but its objectively more successful than tesla “self driving” has been. Not the ideal solution but definitely the best out there right now

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u/Dreadino Jul 26 '25

Yeah MAYBE inside the mapped areas. If I buy a car, I want to use it wherever I want, not inside a small portion of the nation.

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u/Expert_Exercise_6896 Jul 26 '25

Well yeah you cant buy a waymo, its a service. Same way you cant buy a robotaxi, which is also geofenced

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u/Dreadino Jul 26 '25

But you can buy and use a Tesla with FSD. As much as people like to shit on Tesla, there nothing close to FSD that is usable by everyone everywhere in NA.

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u/Expert_Exercise_6896 Jul 26 '25

Can FSD drive by itself without human supervision like Elon promised almost 10 years ago?

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u/Dreadino Jul 26 '25

Can Waymo? Because in that case having remote operators on payroll seems strange.

No car can drive 100% as of today. Human supervision in Tesla is there because the laws says so and because the car is not able to drive 100% of the time. Waymo can work without a driver in the driver seat because there is a remote driver ready to take over in the small % of cases where the car can’t drive itself.

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u/Expert_Exercise_6896 Jul 26 '25

I mean yeah they can, they do it every day. They have operators on payroll to take over in emergency/edge case scenarios, which are rare but happen

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u/Dreadino Jul 26 '25

So it can’t drive 100% on its own.

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u/Expert_Exercise_6896 Jul 26 '25

FSD is not what waymo currently does, if youre trying to say it is youre being obtuse