They are the only ones with a broad real world data source and seem to have wisely taken the right path by not adopting LIDAR, focusing purely on passive vision.
tesla decided to not include lidar because they couldn't find a manufacturer that would make one cheap enough for them/fell out over terms. Its not a statement of vision. Its exactly the same decision that Apple dropped Flash support for the iPhone, The processor and ram were too limited to support it, adobe refused to make compromises, and it was too late to change before launch.
Firstly, Tesla is not focussing purely on passive vision, they are using radar as well. But because radar is nowhere near high resolution enough, they need vision to provide categorization.
Now Musk makes a lot of noise about avoiding lidar, thats mostly because he knows its a massive gamble. Yes, he bleats on about its power budget and cost, but using pure AI cost a whole more in RnD, plus a boat load of latency. Not to mention the massive power budget needed to run the custom silicon.
_eventually_ vision + radar will be more than enough to provide life critical level 5 autonomy. However Tesla barely provide more than level 2.
They have a number of problems to overcome, rain/bug occlusion of vision sensor, low light performance, sunrise/sunset, fog, reliable realtime depth estimation, etc.
I suspect that CCD based time of flight depth sensors will become cheaper, low power, and small (They are almost certainly going to end up in mobile phones soon) before pure vision realtime life critical depth estimation is a thing.
Tesla has never been shy of using expensive components for their products. Their entire strategy relies on bringing down battery costs.
Musk makes a very good argument for his choice to not use LIDAR - nothing alive on this planet uses it. Every creature navigates our world on vision, even dolphins and bats use sonar as a secondary system. The proof of concept is everywhere, Tesla is just adopting it.
And yeah, they're purely level 2 at the moment. I don't agree with their marketing as it does lead some to use it as something more before its ready.
Nothing alive uses wheels, apart from us. Its a null argument.
I don't mind a gamble, what I mind is patent bullshit. If he'd been honest and said "Lidar is great, but its too expensive, and the manufactures are not willing to compromise" and left it at that, it'd be ok. But he didn't He dressed it up in semi prophetic _wank_. Now we have legions of "experts" blindly parroting that ToF sensors are dead and will be never used into the future.
I'm willing to be that a Lidar-like Time if Flight sensor will be shoved into a smartphone in the next 4 years. why? because it makes SLAM so much more easy/immersive/better. Which makes AR better, and more useful.
Once that happens, all bets are off.