Researchers had this knowledge in 2007, when the only cars to finish the DARPA Urban challenge were equipped with Velodyne 3D LIDAR. Elon Musk sent us back a decade by using his platform to ignorantly convince everyone it was possible with just camera alone.

For anyone who understands sensor fusion and the Kalman filter, read this and ask yourself if you trust Elon Musk to direct the sensor strategy on your autonomous vehicle: https://www.threads.com/@mdsnprks/post/DN_FhFikyUE

For anyone wondering, to a sensors engineer the above tweet is like sayin 1 + 1 = 0 -- the truth (and science) is the exact opposite of what he's saying.