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Note that it's a matte black car problem. Shiny black cars are visible. It's also not a problem at short distances, or if there are significant parts of the car that are visible.

It's a similar thing to not being able to see men carrying a glass windowpane. It's a somewhat niche problem.

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LIDAR is not the only sensor input that self-driving cars will need to operate safely. Cars (on the road anyway) will be warm enough to show up on passive IR cameras. Their tires alone should emit enough heat to detect.

Parked cars, on the other hand, may be a tougher challenge. If I were building a self-driving car, my nightmare scenario would probably be a tire lying in the middle of the road, or a piece of matte-textured furniture.

A big rolling tire, complete with wheel, once was hurdling towards me on the highway.

I honked the horn at it.

Thankfully, it missed me despite that brilliant decision.

As the owner of a flat black car, I feel strongly about this 'niche'.

Glass is probably a bigger issue- take glass storefronts and glass bus stops. Niches are still important, but there are a hundred other problems of this level that also need to be solved. This problem is not particularly more important than any other, but I don't mean it's unimportant.

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