lidar

As we reported last month, Tesla’s plans to bring self-driving cars to market without using LiDAR sensors are raising a few eyebrows. That’s because we have been told for years now by most people in the industry that it wasn’t achievable, but the company moved forward with its plans in a big way last month when it started producing all cars with a self-driving-ready hardware suite without LiDAR.

The Drive is now confusing quite a few people about Tesla’s strategy by claiming that the automaker is actually planning to use LiDAR in a new article titled: “Despite Public Stance, Musk Secretly Plans to Use LiDAR in Future Tesla Models: Ignore Musk’s tweets and what he’s said in earnings calls, a Tesla equipped with LiDAR is in the works.” (Update: the Drive has since changed its headline to nuance the claim)

But it’s actually not the case. Here’s why: Expand
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Another Tesla Model S prototype with lidar sensor was spotted in Palo Alto today. It follows a recent sighting of another Tesla vehicle with a lidar sensor, though the lidar tower, from Velodyne, is different this time.  Expand
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The limits of the Autopilot under its current suite of sensors have been debated for a while, especially since Tesla has been discussing an upcoming second-generation hardware for the program to allow fully autonomous driving.

But last night, Elon Musk announced that “certainly moderate and maybe big advances” are possible with Tesla’s current sensors. Expand
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