Comment by dev_throw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dev_throw | Hacker News Reader

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[https://medium.com/unikie/self-driving-cars-2020-and-beyond-...] helped me understand the major players in self driving vehicles and what they're upto.

Tesla does not use Lidar as a cost savings measure, and only uses camera output to determine how the car drives. It is unknown if this is enough to account for enough permutations of traffic, but they're calling it full self driving while using car owners as paying (!) beta testers.

AFAIK, no one is close to releasing an autonomous vehicle that can drive on par or better than an average human driver, but that several have a path to getting there.

I believe many companies can thrive until M&A whittles down that list. I don't think this is a first mover takes all kinda deal because safety will have to be proven over a long time allowing other entrants to prove their worth.

>Tesla does not use Lidar as a cost savings measure

I think it is less about cost saving and more about getting to the root of the problem. According to Elon's statements, Lidar is a crutch and since the AI will eventually have to be good enough to remove the crutch, remove it an the get go and save learning how to use the crutch. This is similar to his reasoning about EVs. Since we will eventually have to have petroleum free cars, Lets remove them as early as possible.

Sometimes you need a crutch because your legs are not up to the task of walking. And the only way to recovery is to use them

> According to Elon's statements, Lidar is a crutch and since the AI will eventually have to be good enough to remove the crutch, remove it an the get go and save learning how to use the crutch.

There's zero reason to believe him on this.

LIDAR - combined with vision - gives a much better awareness. The only reason not to use it is (or was) cost.

Its a cost savings measure. Tesla is adding an imaging radar to their cars (which gives a LIDAR-like output) because their current sensor suite doesn't cut it. "LIDAR is a crutch" is Elon trying to rationalize why he advertised cars without the necessary hardware as capable of autonomy.

(See https://mobile.twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1319363515610...)

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