In addition, a certain CEO of a certain car company has made very aggressive sales pitches about how LIDAR isn't necessary and even going so far as to sell unfinished self driving solutions as being completely capable of doing so.
So hypothetically, if that car company were to adopt LIDAR, they would have been selling their solution under false claims in a sales capacity.
1) the vehicles aren't quite matched with the same experience and intelligence (right now) as exists behind a human's two "cameras"
2) we hold self-driving robots to a much higher standard. meatbags are getting smushed in large numbers daily by other humans, but a single robot smushing a human is headline news for days. giving the robot vastly more information about the world around it, in much higher detail will eventually allow it to drive much better than us.
[obviously we should hold them to higher standards, we should create something much better at driving than the best humans]