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Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

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Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because of the multiple investigations Tesla has currently due to crashes, deaths, injuries, etc. all caused by "whoops our cameras were fooled by some glare/fog and accelerated into a truck/pole"

Those are mainly autopilot which people conflate with FSD, and high percentage are human caused accidents (auto pilot requires full attention and driver is liable).

Why does Tesla ship a feature called "autopilot" which kills you if you use it instead of "FSD"?

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, silly using just cameras, I mean humans have Lidar sensors, that why they can drive, why didn't new just copy that....oh wait. It all seriousness though, Tesla are producing cyber cabs now which are 10th the price of Waymo's and can drive autonomously anywhere in the world. I think we can see where this is going. (Hint: not well for Waymo) Also the article is speculative 'MicroVision says its sensor could one da…

> Tesla are producing cyber cabs now which are 10th the price of Waymo's and can drive autonomously anywhere in the world. My understanding is that cyber cabs still need safety drivers to operate, is that not the case?

Yes, but they are useless, they can't steer, hence why they have more accidents than humans per driven miles.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#73

Interestingly, there have been people in the LIDAR industry predicting costs like this for many years. I heard numbers like $250 per vehicle back in 2012 [1] Of course, ambitious pricing like this is all about economies of scale - sensors that are used in production vehicles are ordered by the million, and that lowers the costs massively. When the huge orders didn't materialise, the economies of scale and low prices…

Also 'Luminar Technologies, a prominent U.S. lidar manufacturer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2025' LIDAR is useful in a small set of scenarios (calibration and validation) but do not bet the farm on it or make it the centre piece of your sensor suite.

This is very wrong. LIDAR scanners have revolutionized surveying by enabling rapid, high-precision 3D mapping of terrain and infrastructure, capturing millions of data points per second. LIDAR can penetrate dense vegetation, allowing accurate, ground-level, mapping in forested or obstructed areas. Drone mounted LIDAR has become very popular. Tripod mounted LIDAR scanners are very commonly used on construction sites. Handhels LIDAR scanners can map the inside of buildings with incredible accuracy. This is very commonly used to create digital twins of factories.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lidar is critical for any autonomous vehicle. It turns out a very accurate 3D point cloud of the environment is very useful for self driving. Crazy, I know.

Useful but not at all required. Camera + radar is sufficient for driving, and camera+ USS is fine for parking. Radar is just cheaper than the number of cameras and compute, it's also not really a strict requirement. Look at how the current cars fuck up, it's mostly navigation, context understanding, and tight manoeuvres. Lidar gives you very little in these areas

All of the actually WORKING self driving systems use LIDAR. This is not a coincidence.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And barely gets enforced

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDPR_fines_and_notices Top 5 fines: 1 - Meta - Ireland - €1.2 billion 2 - Amazon Europe - Luxembourg - €746 millions 3 - WhatsApp - Ireland - €225 millions 4 - British Airway - UK - £183 millions 5 - Google - France - €60 millions I wish every law barely got enforced this way.

I'd say the numbers listed here prove the GPs point of poor enforcement. The largest fine is roughly 0.97% of Meta's 2023 revenue, the equivalent of a $600 fine for somebody making 60k / year. It's a tiny-tiny cost of doing business at best, definitely not a deterrent, given Meta's blatant disregard for GDPR since then.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#77
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, I guess, even more advanced surveillance.

I think we’re well past the point where mass surveillance was a technical challenge. Mass oppression through autonomous violence however…

Even back when Snowden was current news, we'd reached the point where laser microphones could cover every window in London for a bill of materials* less than the annual budget of London's police force.

* I have no way to estimate installation costs, but smartphones show that manufacturing at this scale doesn't need to increase total cost 10x more than the B.o.M.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#78

will Musk backtrack on the whole CV enough, that's how humans do it if price becomes this low?

To be fair, Musk was only parroting what Karpathy was telling him so you should ask him how self driving cars are supposed to work with CV only.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#79

The mind salivates at the idea of sub-$100 and soon after sub-$10 Lidar. We could build spatial awareness into damn near everything. It'll be a cambrian explosion of autonomous robots.

RIP to every single camera in existence if that happens. Lidar is awful with damaging camera lenses.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful but not at all required. Camera + radar is sufficient for driving, and camera+ USS is fine for parking. Radar is just cheaper than the number of cameras and compute, it's also not really a strict requirement. Look at how the current cars fuck up, it's mostly navigation, context understanding, and tight manoeuvres. Lidar gives you very little in these areas

All of the actually WORKING self driving systems use LIDAR. This is not a coincidence.

Like Waymo? (https://dmnews.co.uk/waymo-robotaxi-spotted-unable-to-cross-...) 17 years after betting the farm on LIDAR the solution fails to navigate a puddle. Sorry but they bet on the wrong technology, Tesla has overtaken them with multi camera and NN solution.
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