_abak_

LIDAR typically uses lasers in the so-called eye-safe range (around 1.4 micro meters). This range is precisely around the absorption peak of water so that LIDAR cannot damage the eyes of pedestrians and other by-standers. By construction, LIDAR sucks in the fog, rain, snow, etc.

I guess that being a brilliant hacker doesn't necessarily make you an engineer.

The thing is that you evaluate "big" and "obvious" with the sensors that you have. They obviously werent obstacles for the algo that was driving.

Sure. I am mostly wondering about the demographics of Tesla owners. My guess would be that people who own Tesla cars tend to live in similar areas, with comparable lifestyle. There is also the case of driving style. I doubt there are people that tend to drive like my grandmother, and I would assume that a variety of driving style is important as well.

All I'm saying is that the claim of N million miles should be taken with a grain of salt as long as you do not know the entropy that these miles contain.

there are systems with LIDARs mounted next to the headlights.

All miles are not created equals though. Sure Tesla will gather a lot of data quickly but most of this data will be from people who use their car for their daily commute, everyday at roughly the same hour. This doesn't have the same value as data from different areas/road conditions/time of day