What this really reflects is that Tesla has painted itself into a corner. They've shipped vehicles with a weak sensor suite that's claimed to be sufficient to support self-driving, leaving the software for later. Tesla, unlike everybody else who's serious, doesn't have a LIDAR. Now, it's "later", their software demos are about where Google was in 2010, and Tesla has a big problem. This is a really hard problem to do…
Sorry, I kinda tuned out when you mentioned lidar like it's some requirement for autonomous driving. Lidar is AMAZING for giving press demos on sunny days. For the real world with rain, snow, leaves, plastic bags, etc? Useless. The future is radar + cameras + a LOT of software blood, sweat and tears.
I thought I remembered Nvidia presenting some additional stuff about it in their Tech demo recently.