Tesla did, in fact, use "ground truth vehicles" - vehicles that were owned and operated by Tesla itself, and had high performance LIDARs installed. They were used to collect the data to train the "vision-only" system and verify its performance.

Reportedly, they no longer use this widely - but they still have some LIDAR-equipped "scout vehicles" they send into certain environments to collect extra data.

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ethbr1 4 days ago | parent [-]

It seems like an own goal not to sell these to some interested and targeted customers then.

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ACCount37 4 days ago | parent [-]

Who would buy those and why? They don't use LIDARs for better self-driving somehow. They're just data harvesting units with wheels. And I don't think there's a large and underserved market for LIDARs on wheels.

	▲	ethbr1 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Who would buy those and why? [...] They're just data harvesting units with wheels. Tesla would subsidize them and offer them at the same price as non-LIDAR models, to select customers in target areas. And yes, you answered the second part of your own question.