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.”