Fair, I mentioned how roads are built, but I really meant "the entirety of human wheeled transport is built around human sensing capability". But roads matter too. For example have you ever driven through a small Italian town where there are walls on every side? If I was a LIDAR-equipped human I think I would've been overwhelmed and unable to drive at all. I also would've "sensed" various turns a little too late, as LIDAR happens in a straight line, which can occlude facts about the world that are (more) obvious with vision.
In perfect conditions LIDAR is helpful, but what about the million situations where conditions are not perfect? e.g. what about rain/snow/fog? What about telling the difference between a cardboard box and a metal one? If you want a vehicle that can operate in all conditions and situations on the road today, your vision component needs to be incredibly robust to the point of (possibly) obviating the need for LIDAR.
That $30k figure is actually the lower bound on the current Waymo fleet as it exists today. The $5k figure from the article is the estimated cost per LIDAR sensor (there are 4 on a Waymo vehicle) if you bought them today, which is still $20k total. Additionally the vehicle cited in the article isn't on the road yet, and therefore seems a bit premature to cite as a reference for real-world cost. Imagined future costs are just that, imagined. Those are uninteresting in the same way that Tesla's promises of vision-only capability are uninteresting. What matters is what is actually achieved.
If Waymo achieves the range of driving conditions you can currently operate Tesla FSD, I will be impressed. Likewise if Tesla achieves the safety and consistency per mile that Waymo has, I will be impressed. The question is: which hurdle is higher?
I already explained this. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and by focusing on LIDAR (the cost of LIDAR itself, spending valuable onboard compute on processing and fusing LIDAR data, etc) you are by necessity leaving fewer resources for your vision system. This matters a lot if there are situations where you effectively can't rely on the LIDAR at all, which actually seems to happen a lot in a driving context, assuming you want your vision to work on all roads at all times (that a human could drive).
So yes, if you have infinite resources you should obviously use LIDAR. But we don't so its not nearly as clear.
Yes, I have been making that point for the entirety of this conversation.
1. Tesla needs to figure out how to achieve performance of their system without LIDAR. However since humans do so with two eyes, there is strong precedent that this is possible.
2. Waymo needs to figure out how to self-drive in situations when LIDAR cannot be relied upon. If they cannot do this, their system will never achieve Level 5 (but that's OK! Level 4 taxi service seems like a good business). If they can do this, then it is not clear they ever needed LIDAR in the first place.
In perfect conditions LIDAR is helpful, but what about the million situations where conditions are not perfect? e.g. what about rain/snow/fog? What about telling the difference between a cardboard box and a metal one? If you want a vehicle that can operate in all conditions and situations on the road today, your vision component needs to be incredibly robust to the point of (possibly) obviating the need for LIDAR.
That $30k figure is actually the lower bound on the current Waymo fleet as it exists today. The $5k figure from the article is the estimated cost per LIDAR sensor (there are 4 on a Waymo vehicle) if you bought them today, which is still $20k total. Additionally the vehicle cited in the article isn't on the road yet, and therefore seems a bit premature to cite as a reference for real-world cost. Imagined future costs are just that, imagined. Those are uninteresting in the same way that Tesla's promises of vision-only capability are uninteresting. What matters is what is actually achieved.
If Waymo achieves the range of driving conditions you can currently operate Tesla FSD, I will be impressed. Likewise if Tesla achieves the safety and consistency per mile that Waymo has, I will be impressed. The question is: which hurdle is higher?