Lidar will give you XYZ (z = distance) on a single datapoint, cameras give you XY and you need to calculate the Z from multiple cameras.
Lidar is ugly and expensive, but requires way fewer cycles to calculate distances. And it works through fog and even some obstacles, nor does it care about glare or get "scared" of shadows.
If we had infinite compute in the car, cameras would be the obvious solution ...but we don't. You can get "Pretty good" with cameras, but still people find specific spots where the car is 100% sure a shadow under a bridge is a car or something stupid like that.
> “Humans of course can drive with just eyes, so there’s that proof of existence,” he said. “If the goal were to just approximately match human performance or to build an assist product, that’s a very reasonable way to go.”
It feels like there's a lot of assumptions baked in here. For example, do humans get in accidents because eyes are insufficient driving sensors? Or because human drivers get tired, distracted, make mistakes, etc.
Also, you can put 10 cameras on a car looking in all directions at the same time, which feels materially different from a human that only has 2 eyes which can only look in a single direction at a time.
It's possible that massively superhuman driving performance can't be achieved with just cameras, but I'm not seeing a strong case for that being made here.
$60,000 for car with sensors? I'm delighted to hear Waymo may be anticipating such low price points:
"We are hearing that Waymo is close to having its entire package (car + Waymo sensor suite and driver) at around $60,000"
Competitor explains why competition's product falls short - film at 11. I'd say the proof is in the pudding, which system shows the best results under different circumstances. I suspect the end result will be that a combination of cameras and some scanning apparatus - lidar, radar, sonar - gives the best results and that self-driving systems will converge on that combination.
We already have those results. It’s why Waymo is doing millions of paid rides per month while Tesla is LARPing a robotaxi service that’s basically doing zero fully autonomous rides, as far as anyone can tell.
Also, contrary to your statement, the article directly addresses the meat if the question:
> The disagreement is whether “good enough to help a human drive” ever becomes “good enough to remove the human,” and his answer is no, because the sensing tops out before you get the last few nines.
> Now, Tesla would point to its active Robotaxi service as an example of “removing the human”, but Dolgov also said that camera-only is also good for a demo, and that’s basically what Tesla’s Robotaxi service is right now.
LIDAR units are nowhere near that expensive.
Even ten years ago, the Velodyne top of car units only cost about $80,000.
The short range ones, found at vehicle corners and on the rear, are now around $200 - $1500.
The long range car-top unit is still expensive, around $10,000, and that's dropping. The whole sensor suite on a Waymo is probably under US$20,000 right now. If that.
The future direction for automotive seems to be more car-top sensors with narrower fields of view that add up to a full circle. Only the one that looks ahead needs 300m range.
Article has a paragraph about how lidar is rapidly getting cheaper, so the camera comparison is only temporary
Dolgov also pushed back on the one knock that camera-only fans always reach for: cost. Waymo is on its sixth generation of hardware, and he said each generation has drastically cut the price. Betting against sensors like lidar on today’s prices, he warned, means betting on “a number that has a fairly short shelf life.”
Thats the million (billion? trillion?) dollar question. Will it get cheap enough? Will it get cheap enough to put on 100 million+ vehicles and be competitive with cameras? I honestly don't know the answer, but I haven't seen strong evidence to point to yes.
If 2x Mk 1 eyeballs are good enough then I figure cameras can get there too. Or are we going to outlaw that as well because of competitive incentives of Waymo?
Do you have any conception of how massively, incomprehensibly, extremely superior our sensory system is to any kind of camera-based computer vision we can make?
In terms of dynamic range and color space? Yes absolutely. But for driving you don't really need a huge color space and for dynamic range you can just use separate cameras for daytime and nighttime.
Personally I would rather vote to ban them if they aren't safe enough. If car makers want to cheap out at the expense of public safety they should go to prison for the people they kill.
Nope, you need a regulatory approval, insurance etc. Self driving cars need to be 10x the average driver. So the trillion dollar question is when Lidar will meet all requirements and when camera-only.
"FSD (Supervised)" is a marketing name... which they updated with the parenthetical almost certainly because of brewing legal issues with false advertising. It does not self-drive.
> FSD (Supervised) is an advanced driver assistance system that is intended to be used only with a fully attentive driver. It does not turn a Tesla into a fully autonomous vehicle.
If Teslas could self drive you could sit in the back seat, or sleep, or send the car somewhere without being in it. Elon really wants them to, but Tesla's do not self drive.
You can't buy a self-driving Tesla today. Even Tesla tells you that in the fine print. Its self-driving (supervised). If it was actually self driving, they wouldn't be saying (supervised).
Lidar will give you XYZ (z = distance) on a single datapoint, cameras give you XY and you need to calculate the Z from multiple cameras.
Lidar is ugly and expensive, but requires way fewer cycles to calculate distances. And it works through fog and even some obstacles, nor does it care about glare or get "scared" of shadows.
If we had infinite compute in the car, cameras would be the obvious solution ...but we don't. You can get "Pretty good" with cameras, but still people find specific spots where the car is 100% sure a shadow under a bridge is a car or something stupid like that.
> “Humans of course can drive with just eyes, so there’s that proof of existence,” he said. “If the goal were to just approximately match human performance or to build an assist product, that’s a very reasonable way to go.”
It feels like there's a lot of assumptions baked in here. For example, do humans get in accidents because eyes are insufficient driving sensors? Or because human drivers get tired, distracted, make mistakes, etc.
Also, you can put 10 cameras on a car looking in all directions at the same time, which feels materially different from a human that only has 2 eyes which can only look in a single direction at a time.
It's possible that massively superhuman driving performance can't be achieved with just cameras, but I'm not seeing a strong case for that being made here.
$60,000 for car with sensors? I'm delighted to hear Waymo may be anticipating such low price points: "We are hearing that Waymo is close to having its entire package (car + Waymo sensor suite and driver) at around $60,000"
The 100% tariffs on Chinese cars have been the biggest obstacle from not getting to that cost point sooner.
Competitor explains why competition's product falls short - film at 11. I'd say the proof is in the pudding, which system shows the best results under different circumstances. I suspect the end result will be that a combination of cameras and some scanning apparatus - lidar, radar, sonar - gives the best results and that self-driving systems will converge on that combination.
We already have those results. It’s why Waymo is doing millions of paid rides per month while Tesla is LARPing a robotaxi service that’s basically doing zero fully autonomous rides, as far as anyone can tell.
Right. But are $200K worth of extra sensors actually worth it or are 10+ cameras already safe enough?
This article makes no attempt to answer the actual meat of the question.
Ultimately, people will vote with their wallet.
p.s. I wonder if you could prevent glare by placing an LCD-like device in front of the lens dynamically blocking out the sun.
Where did you get $200k worth of extra sensors?
Also, contrary to your statement, the article directly addresses the meat if the question:
> The disagreement is whether “good enough to help a human drive” ever becomes “good enough to remove the human,” and his answer is no, because the sensing tops out before you get the last few nines.
> Now, Tesla would point to its active Robotaxi service as an example of “removing the human”, but Dolgov also said that camera-only is also good for a demo, and that’s basically what Tesla’s Robotaxi service is right now.
LIDAR units are nowhere near that expensive. Even ten years ago, the Velodyne top of car units only cost about $80,000.
The short range ones, found at vehicle corners and on the rear, are now around $200 - $1500. The long range car-top unit is still expensive, around $10,000, and that's dropping. The whole sensor suite on a Waymo is probably under US$20,000 right now. If that.
The future direction for automotive seems to be more car-top sensors with narrower fields of view that add up to a full circle. Only the one that looks ahead needs 300m range.
Current estimates put the Ojai sensor cost between $15k and $30k. My inclination is that there is confusion between BOM and constructed cost.
Article has a paragraph about how lidar is rapidly getting cheaper, so the camera comparison is only temporary
Dolgov also pushed back on the one knock that camera-only fans always reach for: cost. Waymo is on its sixth generation of hardware, and he said each generation has drastically cut the price. Betting against sensors like lidar on today’s prices, he warned, means betting on “a number that has a fairly short shelf life.”
Thats the million (billion? trillion?) dollar question. Will it get cheap enough? Will it get cheap enough to put on 100 million+ vehicles and be competitive with cameras? I honestly don't know the answer, but I haven't seen strong evidence to point to yes.
> Will it get cheap enough?
An Ojai costs less than a mid tier luxury vehicle. Is that not cheap enough?
And the price is only coming down.
It’s already there.
[delayed]
"Ultimately, people will vote with their wallet"
Seems like a bad way to legislate this, since everyone else on the roads pays the price for cut rate self driving
If 2x Mk 1 eyeballs are good enough then I figure cameras can get there too. Or are we going to outlaw that as well because of competitive incentives of Waymo?
Do you have any conception of how massively, incomprehensibly, extremely superior our sensory system is to any kind of camera-based computer vision we can make?
In terms of dynamic range and color space? Yes absolutely. But for driving you don't really need a huge color space and for dynamic range you can just use separate cameras for daytime and nighttime.
Tesla fanboys aren't known for logic or rigorous thinking.
Which is why we need strong regulation. People shouldn’t be able to vote with their wallet when other peoples lives are at stake.
> But are $200K worth of extra sensors actually worth it
Of course not!
So, you may be surprised to find that Waymo's sensor package doesn't cost $200k. Whoops!
Personally I would rather vote to ban them if they aren't safe enough. If car makers want to cheap out at the expense of public safety they should go to prison for the people they kill.
> Ultimately, people will vote with their wallet.
Nope, you need a regulatory approval, insurance etc. Self driving cars need to be 10x the average driver. So the trillion dollar question is when Lidar will meet all requirements and when camera-only.
1) Both in 2028
2) lidar in 2030 and cameras in 2035
3) Gov will require lidar for full self driving
You’re like 2-3 orders of magnitude off on your cost there.
I can purchase a self-driving Tesla at a reasonable price, in-line with other cars of the same class.
I can't purchase a Waymo at any price.
"FSD (Supervised)" is a marketing name... which they updated with the parenthetical almost certainly because of brewing legal issues with false advertising. It does not self-drive.
https://www.tesla.com/support/fsd#pay-attention
> FSD (Supervised) is an advanced driver assistance system that is intended to be used only with a fully attentive driver. It does not turn a Tesla into a fully autonomous vehicle.
If Teslas could self drive you could sit in the back seat, or sleep, or send the car somewhere without being in it. Elon really wants them to, but Tesla's do not self drive.
If Rivian was completely equal with Tesla at FSD, your tone would be completely different about Rivian. We understand.
You can't purchase a level 3 Tesla at any price, either.
To me, true self-driving starts at level 3. Otherwise, it's supervised.
And Tesla selling their product as "Full Self Driving (Supervised)" is like selling "Fully Cooked Meal (Frozen)". No! You call it a "frozen meal"!
"self-driving" in better than ideal conditions.
You can't buy a self-driving Tesla today. Even Tesla tells you that in the fine print. Its self-driving (supervised). If it was actually self driving, they wouldn't be saying (supervised).
My 2013 Prius does this too, if I let go of the wheel it goes basically straight until it needs me to take over and adjust its trajsctory
What does this have to do with anything at all?