Not clear what their motive for this is – it cannot possibly be to make money!Īll interesting arguments, but in the end, customer trust is the critical factor, and they need to be convinced that AVs without LiDAR are as safe as those using this technology. And they have invested heavily in their internal LiDAR development, even launching the Laser Bear Honeycomb, a short-range LiDAR (used in their current generation AVs in conjunction with other long range LiDARS also internally developed) for sales into non-AV applications. Waymo, is easily the leader on the AV front with more than 10M driven miles to date and 1B simulated miles. On the other hand, the leaders in the AV and ride hailing businesses swear by LiDAR and have made significant investments in developing or using the technology – Waymo, Nuro, Uber, Aurora, Zoox, Argo, Lyft LYFT, Yandex YNDX, etc. GM Cruise stated in a recent interview that they had replaced one of the sensors in the sensor pod of their newly launched purpose built ride hailing AV, the Origin, most likely implying that LiDAR will be replaced by thermal cameras. Daimler has research activity, aimed at exploiting gated imaging and machine learning to replace LiDAR. Tesla TSLA is pushing the idea of pseudo-LIDAR based on innovations in cameras, AI and computing, and the fact that they have access to rich driving data from ~1M cars in varied traffic and weather conditions. And they need other crutches as stated eloquently by my fellow Forbes author, Brad Templeton. Additionally, LiDARs for AVs are also used to develop 3D maps and provide vehicle localization (which could be achieved through other means like cameras and GPS). Typically, the argument for not needing LiDAR as an obstacle avoidance and safety sensor goes as follows – “humans do not have a LiDAR and they drive reasonably well, so why should a computer need LiDAR?” The answer seems pretty obvious - computers today do not replicate human intelligence – they do not think like humans, from a perception and decision-making perspective.

Foresight autonomous tesla