Maybe camera only was a mistake? Researchers in this space have been saying that since DARPA Urban challenge in 2007, but Elon thinks he knows best.
/1 You might want to go for Stereo setup to be on a safe side, but on the pillars not 2cm apart. Tesla didnt even opt for that. First version using Mobileye had something hilariously bad like single 30fps 640x480 monochrome/red(limited ability to recognize red/green lights) front facing camera.
No, it's a reputational problem now. Musk and Tesla have pointlessly backed themselves into an anti-lidar corner. They're going to look foolish when they finally do add lidar to the cars.
Lidar costs are reducing and it is making its way into more production cars:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/elon-musk...
No problems: https://electrek.co/2022/02/04/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-...
It's working great: https://www.thedrive.com/news/44216/this-tesla-self-driving-...
You can justify anything if you're willing to accept it into your moral/ethical calculus.
I prefer less rationalizatiom and Farquading of others.
Tesla’s vision is just a better approach. It’s how humans drive. FSD is using all vision.
Yes, humans drive with just two eyes. But we don’t have LiDAR. If humans had LiDAR, you can bet we would use those when driving too. If Tesla had had LiDAR, it seems reasonable to believe at least one of the autopilot involved deaths would have not occurred. So now we’re at a weird point where we are evaluating the trade off between money, progress, and human lives.