AreaSIX

It’s barely making a dent in the bigger picture.

This is the silliest argument of all, it’s just a recipe for feeling completely helpless and perhaps turning into a total nihilist. Almost nothing you do as an individual will make a dent in the bigger picture, you being one individual and the bigger picture being the bigger picture. Going after big industry? You think you as an individual have a chance of making a dent in the bigger picture if you “go after big industry”, whatever that means? No, no dent, bigger picture remains. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though, because trying is all you as a single individual can do. If the only things worth doing are the things that “make a dent in the bigger picture”, then you as a single individual would be absolutely irrelevant. Nothing you do would be worth doing. That’s no way to live.

“Whatever you do in life will be insignificant but it is very important that you do it, because you can’t know.” -Gandhi

Do you have an example of another serious company working on the problem that also has concluded that lidar is unnecessary? Because I don’t.

I’m not an expert, but as I understand it, the consensus (excluding Musk of course) seems to be that lidar is necessary for proper functioning and safety in poor visibility situations, like in rain, fog or general darkness. I think the odds are good that the judgment of an overwhelming majority of companies is more correct than the judgment of Musk alone. Particularly considering Musk’s proven track record of cost cutting that puts users’ lives in danger, for example not being able to manually open the doors of burning Teslas.

Obviously you don’t know what a ‘quote’ is. Carlin never said such a thing. I don’t need to look it up to know he never said that, because Carlin was perhaps the best comedy writer of all time, and your ‘quote’ seems like it’s engineered to be unfunny.

That’s not really the case, as Elon’s already admitted that there are at least about a half a million Teslas with old HW3 self driving computers that need to have them upgraded to HW4 for them to have the chance at eventually get the FSD the buyers were promised. That’s not even mentioning the upgraded cameras the HW4 vehicles have gotten. The reason for Musk not wanting lidar on Teslas is very simple: cost. He thinks it’s too expensive and unnecessary, unlike every single other manufacturer working on the same problem.

That’s $170B, not millions.