[b112]

lidar was always going to be impossibly expensive for a consumer product.

Everything is expensive without scale. But lidar will be very cost effective, when scaled to millions upon millions of cars annually.

And with scale, there are reasons to optimise, reduce cost, etc. Large volumes of sales draws more research. Research to reduce cost.

Self driving is a long game. Decades.

[orwin]

It's already cost effective. Lidar prices have been divided by like 10 in a bit more than a decade. I've read a Wall street story about a SV company that wanted to enter the Lidar market for cars, only to bifurcate to a weird scam and a SPAC when they realized as the prices fell that Lidar would never be a very profitable.

Lidar production costs have already scaled. Now it need more miniaturization (which will help with production costs even more) and something against diffraction.

[samwillis]

Oh, yeh, don't get me wrong. I meant impossibly expensive to drop into a mid range car with no scaling up from a higher value lower volume product range first.

[ifwinterco]

It's also quite ugly, not sure you can have it on a convertible etc. - all probably solvable, but not ideal. I can see why Tesla tried the camera only approach but doesn't look like it's working out

[xnx]

> It's also quite ugly

To each their own, but it's possible having sensor bumps on your car become a status symbol that indicates you can afford a private driver.

> not sure you can have it on a convertible etc.

Radically different car shapes are possible when human driving never happens or is very rare. Maybe a small van (like a private lounge on wheels, or a train observation car) with a huge panoramic sunroof becomes en vogue.