Elon Musk and his Tesla design team have become adamantly against using radar sensors or LIDAR to allow a Tesla to drive independently. To quote Elon, “LIDAR is fricking, expensive and unnecessary.”
However, as Tesla’s competition now realizes, LIDAR is necessary for many reasons. Relying solely on visual information is dangerous at 30 mph, 60 mph, or any speed. In the real world, large murals are painted on walls next to roads, shopping centers, schools, etc. Environmental factors like smoke and fog will defeat Tesla’s optical-only system.
A car enthusiast recently tested Electric Vehicles with and without LIDAR. Here is a section from an article by Victor Tangermann:
In perhaps the most striking example in the video, Tesla was fooled by a Wile E. Coyote-style wall painted to look like the road ahead of it, causing the vehicle to plow right through it.
Meanwhile, the Luminar-equipped Lexus SUV aced all the tests with flying colors.
“I can definitively say for the first time in the history of the world, Tesla’s optical camera system would absolutely smash through a fake wall without even a slight tap on the brakes,” Rober said in the video.
Sure, a fake cartoon wall isn’t exactly an obstacle we encounter on public roads very often, if ever. But Rober’s testing perfectly illustrates larger shortcomings of relying soley on cameras.