this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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Read about this somewhere. Iirc, Elon felt cameras were better than LiDAR at a time when that was kinda true, but the technology improved considerably in the interim and he pridefully refuses to admit he needs to adapt. [Edit: I had hastily read the referenced article and am incorrect here; link to accurate statements is linked in a reply below.]
that was never true
Found the article! I had breezed through the thing. I was incorrect about the LiDAR/camera thing. Instead it was: ‘Elon even admitted that “very high-resolution radars would be better than pure vision”, but he claimed that “such a radar does not exist”’
He, of course was incorrect and proven incorrect, but ‘the problem is that Musk has taken such a strong stance against [LiDARs] for so long that now that they have improved immensely and reduced in prices, he still can’t admit that he was wrong and use them.’
Lol just like his Nazi forefathers in WWII who refused to believe (more than once!) the British had the advanced radar that they actually did have.
I don't even understand that logic. Use both. Even if one is significantly better than the other, they each have different weaknesses and can mitigate for each other.
It was always just to save money and pad the profit margins
And to make him think he's a smart boy.
A LiDAR sensor couldn't add more than a few hundred to a car, surely
They ditched radar at a time when radar only added probably about $50 a car according to some estimates.
It may technically get a smidge more profitable, but it almost seems like it's more about hubris around tech shouldn't need more than a human to do as well. Which even if it were true, is a stupid stance to take when in that scenario you could have better than human senses.
And thats a few hundred less profit, so we cant have that.
That was the story but it was supply chain issues that lead him to that conclusion. Same reason why lumbar controls were removed from passenger seats.
He didn't think they were better. He thought Tesla could get away without the more expensive lidar. Basically "humans can drive with just vision, that should be enough for an autonomous vehicle also." Basically he did it because lidar is more expensive.
Even if humans can drive with just vision:
Human vision is great, human attention is not and neither is their reaction time. Computers are 100x better at both of those. If you throw lidar into the mix, then a car's vision is now much better than a humans.
IMHO self driving cars have to be statistically 10x better than humans to be widely implemented. If it passes that threshold them I'm fine with them.
I didn't think it was about the cost. I think he just likes to be contrarian because he thinks it makes him seem smart. He then needs to stick by his stupid decisions.
I'm assuming it's a cost because it makes sense to me. His goal was to build full-self-driving (FSD) into ever car and sell the service as a subscription.
If you add another $500 in components then that's a lot of cost (probably a lot cheaper today but this was 10 years ago). Cameras are cheap and can be spread around the car with additional non-FSD benefits where as lidar has much fewer uses when the cost is not covered. I think he used his "first-principles" argument as a justification to the engineers as another way for him to say "I don't want to pay for lidar, make it work with the cheap cameras."
Why else would management take off the table an obviously extremely useful safety tool?
Couldn't he just use both... Like LiDAR as a contingency
Every LiDAR system must use at least both. LiDAR can't tell you about lane markings, what's on signs, and state of traffic lights.
But absolutely, you could have multiple sensing technologies and have access to the best of all worlds.
I added a correction in another reply. Basically he stubbornly refuses to believe a powerful enough LiDAR exists. So I suppose he is all-in on “LieDAR” technology instead (yes, I kinda feel bad about this pun too)
He could. In fact Waymos, for instance, do and are fully autonomous commercial taxis while Tesla are still 2 years out from full self driving for the tenth year in a row