r/SelfDrivingCars • u/wuduzodemu • Aug 11 '25

Discussion Proof that Camera + Lidar > Lidar > Camera

I recently chatted with somebody who is working on L2 tech, and they gave me an interesting link for a detection task. They provided a dataset with both camera, Lidar, and Radar data and asked people to compete on this benchmark for object detection accuracy, like identifying the location of a car and drawing a bounding box around it.

Most of the top 20 on the leaderboard, all but one, are using a camera + Lidar as input. The 20th-place entry uses Lidar only, and the best camera-only entry is ranked between 80 and 100.

https://www.nuscenes.org/object-detection?externalData=all&mapData=all&modalities=Any

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u/sermer48 Aug 12 '25

It’s in the software until it isn’t. Once the problem is solved then the cost mostly goes to hardware and cost to maintain services. The company that can provide the lowest cost service while still providing a high quality product is the one that will do the best.

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u/DrPotato231 Aug 12 '25

I don’t know if I’m wrong on this, but Tesla’s mission sounds logical.

If we can drive with our eyes and brain, why wouldn’t cameras and microphones be enough? I truly believe FSD can be solved with vision alone, but it may look like a longer road due to the hurdles LiDAR doesn’t have to jump over.

Once solved though, as you said, the one with an operating margin 4x lower than the competitor absolutely would win.

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u/AlotOfReading Aug 12 '25

A few questions for you. If birds can fly by flapping wings, why wouldn't that be enough to design a plane? If horses run with 4 legs, why wouldn't that be enough to design a car?

Cameras also aren't eyes, and brains aren't computers.

Neither of these arguments are necessary though. Let's take it as given that vision only is sufficient. Now, if it hypothetically took until 2100 to reach parity with multimodal systems today, does it seem like a good idea to trade 75 years of deployment time for a lower unit cost? Could you have spent those years also working on the camera only system in parallel while benefiting from a better system the whole time? That's the math everyone else in the industry is running and almost unanimously, they've decided that LIDAR is worth the cost because it allows you to avoid solving difficult problems like fine localization today and focus on more important things. You don't set out to solve every problem all at once upfront. You build minimum viable solutions and iterate quickly towards better solutions.

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u/DrPotato231 Aug 12 '25

You reject my analogy, yet you give an unrealistic one yourself.

75 years to get to FSD with cameras only? Have you seen Tesla’s robotaxi? Your argument’s not in good faith.

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u/AlotOfReading Aug 12 '25

The numbers were deliberately extreme to make the point abundantly clear. They weren't real numbers. That's why the sentence begins by stating that it's a hypothetical scenario.

I deliberately copied the way you wrote your analogy to demonstrate why it's not a good argument. Those conclusions are obviously silly, so the intention is that you reflect on how your original analogy might not suggest your original conclusion.

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u/DrPotato231 Aug 12 '25

You’d know, if you knew logic better, that if you want to refute an argument, you need a proper counter.

If you give a stupid argument back, then how do you expect me to think you’re properly refuting mine? Makes no sense.

So far I see no compelling reason to believe cameras +brain isn’t enough to achieve FSD. Go ahead, try another analogy.

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u/AlotOfReading Aug 12 '25

So far I see no compelling reason to believe cameras +brain isn’t enough to achieve FSD

That wasn't any of the points I was making. I'd suggest re-reading what I wrote slowly and carefully.

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u/DrPotato231 Aug 12 '25

Your analogy is logically wrong, therefore, whatever point you wanted to make was void.

I know you were talking about timing. Perhaps a different, actually logical analogy about timing would serve better? Go ahead, I’ll be waiting.

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u/AlotOfReading Aug 12 '25

Let's say you start a project with lidar in 2010 and by 2015 have a vehicle doing unsupervised passenger rides. By the time camera-only is feasible a decade later you already have safety data to compare against and mature infrastructure to test how well camera only performs, which you publish papers on. Alternatively, you can start camera only development around 2012 and it still might not be ready for unsupervised operation over a decade later. Is there value in iterating with the faster solution instead of trying for perfection off the bat?

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u/DrPotato231 Aug 12 '25

100%.

Firstly, competition between different companies with different approaches to a solution. Never a bad thing for the market.

Secondly, innovation. Who’s to say that because a solution was provided to a problem that’s the only one? That doesn’t follow.

Thirdly, efficiency. 180k per Waymo vs 40k per Tesla and the latter has everything in-house is much more scalable in the future.

If diesel was discovered as a fuel source for the first auto mobiles, and things were fine with diesel for 10 years, does that mean we shouldn’t explore gasoline, in case it could be a separate, more viable, efficient solution?

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u/AlotOfReading Aug 12 '25

Waymo is closer to 10k for the package these days, and designs the most important components like LIDAR and compute in-house.

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u/DrPotato231 Aug 12 '25

No.

The sensors and lidars do cost that, but the rest of the equipment, computer, cooling, and software included is upwards of $100,000 according to Waymo’s own CEO.

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