[kjksf]

According to a recent interview with pony.ai (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VcpZnIg3M0) the cost to retrofit a car with all necessary sensors is $75k.

A Lidar is a significant part of that.

If $40k Tesla can do as well as $40k car + $75k of sensors (including lidar) it's economical game over. Tesla wins by a wide margin.

The $75k will drop in time, but the battle will likely happen before the price of lidars drop significantly enough.

[new_realist]

If self driving becomes a reality robotaxis will retail for several hundred thousand dollars.

[marvin]

They will certainly have an economic value of multiple hundred thousand dollars, but that applies to all manufacturers. So if a manufacturer is able to produce non-LIDAR self-driving cars and sells those cars to consumers for $100,000 less than the competition, you can bet that they’ll still capture the robotaxi rental value that is there, through an app store-like agreement. Leaving the money on the table would obviously not happen, unless it was intended to drive the competition out of business.

There would probably be room for both these models (direct sales that capture much of the self-driving value and leasing), but regardless there are obviously strong incentives for a 5- or 6-figure reduction in costs.