Lidar is cool when you want to get a point cloud from a fixed location, or dealing with perfectly uniform surfaces (which cars don't because humans can't do this either), but beyond that there are better ways to do things.
“Why, thank you, Camera! You are doing a wonderful job of seeing everything in your FOV!”
“Ahh, you are very flattering, LIDAR! It’s an endearing quality in you, for sure!”
LIDAR: blushes
Not always. Definitely not all freeways.
> And every car has its own lights for seeing where you are driving
Not always far enough. Especially at freeway speeds on unlit freeways.
If humans don't have lidar but can drive it's an existence proof of the viability of that approach.
Lidar is superhuman vision.
The real answer is very simple: safe drivers slow down to adapt to poor conditions (including visibility). Lidar might reduce how much it needs to slow down but I don't think it will be eliminated because you can't drive with only lidar.
I smell smoke before I see it. Useful if there's a forest fire up ahead.
Burning rubber or smoke from the engine is an indicator of a mechanical issue.
> you can't drive with only lidar.
Nobody said you could. This is a strawman.
Tesla stans are the only ones trying to convince everyone you can only drive with cameras. Everyone else is pretty united on the usefulness of multiple inputs.
Didn't mean it in that way. I meant a car with camera+lidar would realistically still slow down because of the reduced camera visibility.
> Tesla stans are the only ones trying to convince everyone you can only drive with cameras. Everyone else is pretty united on the usefulness of multiple inputs.
Ignore them. The latest Model S and X have radar again, but possibly unused right now, so they are probably going to roll that out in a refresh of the 3 and Y eventually.