[foxtr0t]

Agreed, Tesla made these decisions in 2014(ish) which was way before it was clear that convolutional neural networks would not give satisfactory depth perception and therefore localization without some major breakthroughs that just haven't happened. I actually believe these choices by Tesla were the rational choices at the time. If you remember back to the beginning of this decade, the deep learning revolution seemed like it was going to take over every industry and turn everything upside down. That progress unfortunately stopped and Tesla seems to be holding the proverbial bag. These companies are all executing strategies in a game that will last for at least another decade if not two. Things will change, but at the moment, it seems to me that LiDAR was the correct choice (subject to change).

To me, the revolution that actually mattered the most was the cell phone supply chain revolution (if you can call it that). That is what allowed these companies to equip their vehicles with cheap cameras, radar, and eventually LiDAR.