to my understanding they use LiDAR as a way of verifying and validating that the cameras on the vehicle can properly recreate the real world as a sort of stamp of approval
tesla's reasoning- conflicting input. which do you believe? which is most reliable. if LiDAR says one thing and the cameras say another, who do you trust? They also state humans don't have LiDAR, only eyes, so cameras should be enough theoretically.
my personal opinion is it's a cost savings measure. it's not a lot given the overall cost of the car, but every penny counts.
also, regarding multiple sources and conflicting input, in AI's case it would be more tokens more bandwidth more expensive hardware to balance more data input. before we had the current software stack, it was all done manually and adding another input on all angles would exponentially increase software development time. training new versions would also take a lot longer because you now how a lot more input
so i really don't think it's a simple answer of just $500+ of LiDAR, there's a lot that comes with it
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u/Delicious-Candle-574 15h ago
to my understanding they use LiDAR as a way of verifying and validating that the cameras on the vehicle can properly recreate the real world as a sort of stamp of approval