Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by johnhartigun 1994 days ago
Tesla can't use lidars because: 1. It would make the cars much more expensive. 2. They would have to refund all people who've bough FSD or provide them a free upgrade.
1 comments

These are fairly artificial constraints.

1. Lidar is expensive for everyone. It’s not like Tesla will pay more than other manufacturers. They’d prefer not to use Lidar, but if cameras just don’t cut it, I don't think they would die on that hill.

2. I’m sure there is some fine print around the current FSD being for camera based sensors only. They can easily say the car tops off at L4 for cameras, and L5 needs Lidar, if we come to that bridge

Yeah, it's expensive for everyone but the point was that the FSD product is de facto impossible with lidars. Therefore, they have to pretend that it can be done with cameras.