Sensor fusion is also hard to get right, since you still need cameras you have to fuse the two information streams. Thats mainly a software problem and companies like Waymo have done it, but Tesla was having trouble with it earlier, and if you don’t do it right, your self driving system can be less reliable.

> Musk miscalculated on 1) cost reduction in LIDAR and 2) how incredible the human brain is compared to computers.

And, less excusable, ignorant of how incredible human eyes are compared to small sensor cameras. In particular high DR in low light, with fast motion. Every photographer knows this.

There certainly is a pretty on going miscalculation regarding human intelligence, and consrquentially, empathy.

IMHO not using lidars sounds like a premature optimisation and a complication, with a level of hubris.

This is a difficult problem to solve and perhaps a pragmatic approach was/is to make your life as simple as possible to help get to a fully working solution, even if more expensive, then you can improve cost and optimise.

Eh, I think ‘miscalculation’ might be giving too much credit about good intentions.

He wanted (needed?) to get on the hype train for self driving to pump up the stock price, knew that at the time there was zero chance they could sell it at the price point lidar required at the time - or even effective other sensors (like radar) - and sold it anyway at the price point that people would buy it at, even though it was not plausibly going to ever work at the level that was being promised.

There is a word for that. But I’m sure there are many lawyers that will say it was ‘mere fluffery’ or the like. And I’m sure he’ll get away with it, because more than enough people are complicit in the mess.

Miscalculation assumes there was a mistake somewhere, but near as I can tell, it is playing out as any reasonable person expected it too, given what was known at the time.

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Tesla does not handle rain well either. This is not a LIDAR problem, it is a problem with self driving cars in general.

That's an example of it failing safe. I'd rather it did that than drive me into a sinkhole because it thought it was a puddle.

There is also a report from the same flooding in LA of a Waymo driving into a flooded road and getting stuck.

They might have flipped a switch after that, causing this.

Dude that's not a 'puddle' as the article claims, that's a body of water that it's not even visually obvious whether it's safe to drive through. Maybe I'm a bad driver but I'd hesitate to drive through that in a small car either.

>A vehicle got stuck trying to figure out an obstacle so sensors with less information are better than sensors with more information.