Their stance is that by using lidar OEMs are hamstringing themselves on solving vision because they are so reliant on it.

i get that… but… vision is kinda shit. why not use all the tools at your disposal? like literally “x ray vision” is something that we see as a super power because it’d be so useful - radar gives us that

vision is an approximation of things like lidar. can you get a depth map out of vision? sure by why not just measure it directly and then you’re not introducing error by your model literally hallucinating

The more sensors you deal with, the more your attention gets divided. You aren't laser focused on one thing.

kinda but also the last 20% takes 80% of the effort… solving a lot of easy problems with more information will lead to a better short term outcome, and then when you’re getting good results then you can solve from 80% to 85% then 85 to 90 etc across your whole sensor suite

The extra sensors also cost a lot of money

so they though? you can buy hobbyist ultrasonic sensors for literally a couple of bucks, lidar for a few hundred - sure that’s not at the grade that you’d use for cars, but at some point it’s an economies of scale problem. they’re not actually that expensive for a commodity “good enough” sensor package

You might not like the reasons, or their stance

correct - i understand them, but as an engineer it’s just wrong when you’re talking about one of the most dangerous activities that humanity collectively engages in (driving)

What happens when they keep seeing improvements in vision and now radar isn't needed?

i think this could be the sticking point - i don’t think any extra sensors are needed, just like i don’t think seatbelts or air bags etc are needed… but… they’re helpful and improve the safety of people in and around the car

all the crazy headlines you see about it are idiots in cars being idiots

agree, and i totally think driverless is the way to go - humans are far worse drivers than machines are right now without any improvement

… however, better isn’t perfect, and when it comes to safety simply ignoring tools because of some belief that eventually it’ll be fine is misguided at best, and negligent at worst

If people wanna blame Elon for convincing people to be idiots, sure, you can do that

absolutely that too! their systems aren’t “drives itself no problemo” and that’s how they’re marketing it