Do you think Tesla's insistence that LIDAR is useless has a part in this case? To me it's telling that everyone in the ASD game _except_ Tesla is using LIDAR.
Has Tesla actually asserted that LIDAR is “useless”? I know Musk has argued that LIDAR is not necessary, but “not necessary” and “useless” are very different things.
"Anyone who relies on LiDAR is doomed. Doomed. It's like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices. One is bad, and now you want to put in a whole bunch of them. That's ridiculous."
It's probably a bad idea if your plan is to sell self-driving cars to consumers. Waymo can afford a substantially higher cost premium on their self-driving cars because they are looking at providing a taxi service, not a car that people can buy.
