Let's try this.
@mobada , let's get some sort of explanation or description of your qualifications to make the claims you make.
I simply grabbed a paragraph from a couple pages ago.
Not for tesla. You assume that they will drive materially any different with lidar. They won't. They'll drive exactly the same as they do for 99.99% of scenarios and maybe use lidar to see cross traffic or something like that. Keep in mind FSD has the best accident avoidance in the world with camera only. It's only going to get better. If this is the worst robotaxi will ever perform, that is saying something.
Where are the facts? "They won't". Sounds like an opinion. "99.99% of scenarios..." Doubtfully scientifically based. "Maybe use lidar... or something like that" Maybe? "Best accident avoidance in the world..." Sounds like an opinion again. "It's only going to get better." Opinion again?
Tesla is operating 1300 vehicles with no lidar. That means they have a safety level to do unsupervised with camera only. They know they have a safety level to drive with camera only because they have billions of miles that tells them this, billions of miles of simulation as well, and they know what the limitations of their system are.
They are scaling at a fast rate, which means the limiting factor of scaling is not driving tech anymore but it is the path to scaling their technology. They are operating on high speed roads (50mph), operating at night, and in inclement weather.
if this is the worst that tesla ever performs they will always improve, as the highest resolution and highest framerate sensor available for self driving is vision. Lidar also has the similar failure modes as cameras so it's not like that really fixes as much as people think it does.
The other thing is people don't understand how much a camera can already see at night time. The cameras used for self driving are not normal cameras. They are automotive cameras night designed for cinematic images, but to capture high dynamic range. Just take a raw image from a camera in what appears to be complete darkness and gain it up. You can see an alarming amount of details.
here's an example of this. This is a simple video from the actionvfx website. It looks like just a fire, with blackness around it. If you download the raw image and you gain it up, you can see there are entire teams of people standing in the background. You can see buildings, you can see actually a lot of stuff. So in what appears like a video with nothing there, there's actually several people which are clearly visible and very easy to avoid.
This means you have a safety level to do unsupervised already which clearly tesla does. And they have one that works at night, in the rain and on high speed roads
You assume that they will drive materially any different with lidar. They won't. They'll drive exactly the same as they do for 99.99% of scenarios and maybe use lidar to see cross traffic or something like that.
Adding more sensors consumes more memory bandwidth, increases processing required, and of course increases latency. Therefore at any given moment you always want to process the least amount of sensors possible.
you would only use a lidar to fix a deficiency. In tesla's case the cameras positioned on the side of the car are placed a little far back which makes viewing cross traffic a little hard without creeping far. In this case having corner radar (lidar would not be used here) would theoretically in the future make a difference for certain intersections, but at the same time, again, your driving will always improve.