Tesla disagrees with you on this, they are still operating with the belief that cameras will eventually be superior and cheaper compared to LIDAR.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/7/16988628/elon-musk-lidar-s...

I know they disagree with me, they have multiple reasons to bury their heads in the sand. Admitting they were wrong would be a PR disaster, it would probably hurt Elon's ego, and a recall to retrofit LIDAR would probably be extremely costly.

But if you talk with the leading experts in the field of car automation, the research groups who are actually making it work to some degree today, they are all using LIDAR. Furthermore you have people like the CTO of Mobileye saying that Tesla was trying to push Mobileye's tech beyond what it's capable of (past tense was, because Mobileye apparently dropped Tesla over this, prompting Tesla to develop their own presumably equivalent non-LIDAR solution in house): https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/09/tesla-dropped-by-mobile...

No. LIDAR has its place, but it certainly a tech that has seen its day. Integrated sensor arrays consisting of multiple cameras and image processors can build more accurate situational awareness pictures faster. And to imply that Tesla's automation assist is not working is ridiculous.

On the contrary, LIDAR is only recently coming into its own:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-08/alphabet-...

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/01/googles-waymo-invests-i...

What I'm 'implying' (saying outright I thought) is that Tesla hardware is unsuitable for the continued advance of automation functionality. What they're doing currently is already pushing their inadequate sensors to the limit.

Are Tesla cars equipped with enough processing power? I agree that with some good cameras a ton of processing power and a super AI you could avoid crashes, I mean Tesla hit a fire Truck, the cameras would have been enough to detect the obstacle but the AI or the hardware needed to process the camera output is years behind what it should be.

I think you have an unrealistic understanding of the state of visual processing systems today.

The hardware simply isn't capable of the processing necessary to develop 360-degree situational awareness at the speeds that a vehicle would be driving.

At this point, nobody really cares what Tesla (or specifically, Musk) thinks about the virtues of cameras vs LIDAR.

Autopilot's can't even sense stationary objects in front of the car. The most basic task of a self-driving system. Getting visual AI up to that point will require computing technology significantly more capable than what Tesla has on any of its vehicle--something on the order of two or three CPU/GPU generations more capable.

By the time the visual processing hardware is up to the task, the cost of a LIDAR system will no longer be the most expensive part of the car. Hell, there are already systems in pre-production that now cost less than $2000/sensor, before economies of scale.

I really am of the belief he talked Tesla into a corner here. While LIDAR is bulkier it offers so much beyond RADAR and cameras that its not truly up for debate. I could ramble but this article Wired[1] does it properly

As for today's announcement I don't know what to say other than maybe they are trying to get in front of something they know is coming down from the NHTSA. I certainly hope they don't try to bluff them

https://www.wired.com/story/lidar-self-driving-cars-luminar-...

They're going to say that until they go full-LIDAR having purchased a guarantee from major suppliers they can later vertically integrate.

Just like Apple did with so many things.

Well, that’s not what the article says:

“Musk reiterated his dislike of LIDAR and defended Tesla’s strategy of achieving “full autonomy” using only cameras, radar, and ultrasonic sensors.”

I believe Elon has stated it should not be necessary. However, he also tweetes if his compsny comes to find there is no other way without Lidar they will figure a way to upgrade the hardware at no additional cost to those who have prepaid for it.

There's no way to update the Model X for LIDAR. It's structurally incapable of supporting any of the existing LIDAR systems in production or currently in development. The same could arguably be said for the Model S, due to the front monopane windshield.

Even if these vehicles could be modified to support LIDAR systems, the modifications alone would likely cost upwards of $10,000 per vehicle, not including the cost of the LIDAR system (currently $20,000 for cheapest system offering 360 coverage). Those costs would bankrupt Tesla.

At some point, Musk needs to learn to keep his mouth shut. A sales person making these types of claims can be disregarded on the grounds that a sales person may not have the authority to bind the company. But if the CEO says the same things, customers who purchase cars based on the CEO's representations can definitely sue the company for failure to deliver promised goods.

Then all Musk needs to do is not allow Tesla to "come to find" out that LIDAR is necessary before the technology has advanced to such a degree that they can retrofit the Model X and to do so when the cost has come down sufficiently to afford it.

Which is what he's currently doing. When they do finally admit that LIDAR is necessary, Elon will play the "no body could have foreseen this situation and we were operating under the best knowledge at the time" card.

He's bullshit all the way down.

LIDAR is not magic. You can get full situational awareness with boring old video these days. LIDAR was just easier to characterize back in the day before gigahertz ASIC AD video processors.

LIDAR may be more expensive, but it has one huge advantage: it can identify stationary objects in 3D space.

For a visual processing system to accomplish the same task, it must first: identify objects in a frame. Identify objects in the next frame. Identify objects in the images taken from the other cameras. Compare the objects, taking into account positional differences arising from the speed of the vehicle, and triangulate their positions relative to the vehicle.

This is certainly doable (Microsoft Photosynth has been around for at least a decade), but each one of these tasks, and especially the last task, requires more processing power than Tesla has put into its vehicles.

Interestingly, it can be done even with a single sensor. We can map object’s 3D positions with just one eye. The brain uses the relative motion of various object in the scene due to forward motion induced parallax and other clues such as object size. It’s possible to drive with one eye covered, but might as well use multiple sensors if available.

See “Depth Perception” at [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_perception

“One eye”, in humans, has about 125 million sensors (120 million rods, 6 million cones) Calling that “one sensor” is cheating slightly.

But yes, you only need that second eye for stereo vision if you only have data from a single moment in time.

In theory, you can see perfect 3D with a single photoreceptor by scanning with it (giving up temporal resolution, a bit like a electron gun that can write a million pixels per second writes only 50 or 60 images a second on a tv)

By your logic, a 125megapixel camera arguably has 125 million sensors too?

Assuming it’s a color camera, at least double that :-)

I have perfect vision in one eye and very poor vision in the other. While it's possible for me to drive without my glasses, I don't consider it safe. With one eye I can read signs, see pedestrians, cars, etc; but I find that the accuracy of my depth perception suffers. I estimate speed and distances with less precision. Try catching a baseball with one eye covered. It's possible but a lot harder.

Your brain is using something in the ballpark of a petaflop of computing power to do that sort of incredible stuff.

Motion is not required either. There's a reason for a shallow DoF in big photographic lenses/sensors. Bokeh can be represented as a processed depth map.