> lidar is largely irrelevant. It is only used in 3D scene reconstruction

Source? AIUI lidar is actively used as a sensor/input to detect absolute distance between things, which seems like 80% of what you need to drive safely.

Lidar produces a monochromatic 3D scene, which you can also extract with cameras using SLAM techniques. But these scenes simply do not carry the information needed to navigate the world - you only get one colour, so you cannot see signs, markings, lights, anything. LIDAR is thus a small, secondary input to the problem of "perception".

Once you've accurately perceived the world, the hard part is the action, and the judgement needed to drive safely. It doesn't matter how you got your labeled 3D scene (LIDAR or SLAM), you have to figure out how to navigate it safely and this is more like 90% of the self-driving challenge. If you look at videos of the latest FSD in action (12.5) perception is not an issue. Teslas see everything just fine, they don't disengage because they didn't see a car, but because their judgement is not human level yet.

Isn’t lidar how you avoid driving into the side of a white truck on a bright day when the sun is positioned just so?

That is one way, yes, there are others. But if you find my writing unconvincing, here's something you can try: Watch videos of FSD driving and note how often it fails to see objects like cars, trucks, people etc. FSD has 99 problems, but depth perception ain't one.

Can you stop talking nonsense. There is so much difference between cameras and lidar. Weather and fog being one clear example. It’s unbelievable what people will do to suck up to elon.

Completely agree. It’s frustrating how every thread on self-driving devolves into the same argument about cameras vs. LIDAR. Everyone points to Tesla FSD disengagements as evidence, when the vast majority of disengagements are caused by the route planning, not the vision stack.

I’ve watched countless hours of FSD footage and have FSD on my Model 3, and I’ve never seen it incorrectly map the position of a vehicle. Both Tesla and Waymo seem to have reliable perception stacks, the actual decision-making is the hard part, like you said.

I'm really glad that Google/Waymo isn't the only player in this space. Everything Google invests in is ultimately to benefit their ad business. If Tesla wasn't also competing here, the future would be robot taxis that relentlessly bombard you with ads from start to finish and we would have no choice but to tolerate it.

Alphabet != Google