Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

Re:Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as ... by leesec on Friday December 28, 2018 @09:21PM (#18781334)

I work for an automotive tech company and have installed an L2 self driving system into my friends Camry, I don't think you've thought critically about this. LIDAR is currently a prohibitively expensive technology that provides a point map of the surrounding area. The LIDAR that Waymo uses is nearly as expensive as the car itself. This same point map can be done with computer vision/cameras, and good software. There are many other "experts" that think this is equally viable e.g. George Hotz at Comma AI or Anthony Levandowski at Pronto.

I am not opposed to LIDAR. I just think it is unnecessary and that computer vision is likely to get good enough before LIDAR gets cheap enough.

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Re:Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as ... by darkpuma on Friday December 28, 2018 @11:50PM (#18781905)

The last time I looked into it (which was admittedly a few months ago) Comma.ai was by their own admission a Level 2 system, and a somewhat sketchy one at that. While it's obviously really cool, it's a long way off from Level 5.

LIDAR currently being very expensive (and a bit bulky) is obviously the reason Tesla hasn't put LIDAR in their cars. I don't really fault them for that, I fault them for their deceptive advertising. The LIDAR industry has not yet progressed to the point where it makes sense to bring a car to market with hardware ready for Level 5 automation, so Tesla should stop claiming they've done so.

Assuming the current Level 5 automation hype doesn't fizzle then smoulder for decades like the AI craze of the 60s, then it's success will coincide with rapid advances in size and price of LIDAR.

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