Musk story with LiDAR Technology started in April 2019 during Tesla’s first-ever Autonomy Day, when Tesla’s CEO said that lidar is a “fool’s errand” and that anyone relying on it is “doomed.” Instead, Tesla uses its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability (FSD).
Today, answering to @WholeMarsBlog, Elon Musk said that: “LIDAR is a seductive local maximum. SpaceX designed & built them to dock with ISS.However, the road system was designed to work with biological neural nets & eyes, so a general solution to self-driving necessarily will require silicon neural nets & cameras. Real-world AI.”
As previously said, Tesla uses its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability (FSD) technology: “Each new Tesla vehicle is equipped with 8 external cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors and a powerful onboard computer provide an additional layer of safety to guide you on your journey. All vehicles built for the North American market now utilize our camera-based Tesla Vision, which are not equipped with radar and instead rely on Tesla’s advanced suite of cameras and neural net processing to deliver Autopilot and related features.” — Tesla says on its website.
What is LiDAR Technology?
Lidar is an acronym for “light detection and ranging.” It is sometimes called “laser scanning” or “3D scanning.” The technology uses eye-safe laser beams to create a 3D representation of the surveyed environment.
Earlier this week, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess answered several questions focused on electrification, software and autonomy and enhanced the relevance of LiDAR for the Level 3 of Autonomous Driving.
Lidar technology is still expensive, but today [it’s] the only way to offer redundant perception to the 360 camera systems which are a must. Safety is really crucial in autonomous driving. For level 3 driving you need redundant perception.
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess
Currently, the are many EV makers using LiDAR Technology such as Nio, Lucid Motors and Volvo.