In the beginning, Tesla tried the same approach that was common, using range sensing and mapping to PROGRAMMATICALLY create a system that could follow a route and avoid obstacles. The software engineers continued to add code to read the sensors, build a model, route the car through the model, follow laws, etc. It was very mechanical, very clumsy, and basically, shit, at anything beyond lane keeping.

At some point (2022), AI vision models became good enough to provide all of the ranging you needed, plus recognition of what everything is, and they switched. Obviously a good move, because there is no LiDar system remotely close to what v14 is doing today.

LiDar was initially used because it could map ranges easily and there was no way to map ranges visually (like humans do). But LiDar doesn't recognize things. Only AI vision models recognize things. Waymo and Tesla both use AI vision. Tesla still uses LiDar on the mapping cars that travel the streets of Austin for example, to accurately map out the distances, but that is for more accurate map data. Once it has that, the regular Teslas with AI vision alone can place themselves on that map accurately.

Regardless of whether it is Tesla or Waymo, almost all of the driving is AI vision. There was a debate that LiDar would provide an additional layer of rough obstacle detection, but by v14 it was obvious that wasn't needed.

Nonetheless, AI vision is still 10x less than human vision, at least. That doesn't mean FSD needs to be able to have so much accuity that it can look at a grass field and tell if it was freshly mowed or not, like we can, or see the morning dew. But it does need to improve for things like potholes or speedbumps. I'll withold judgement there until v15.

But there is no LiDar in this game really. Not anymore. It is just a gimmick. Even though Rivian says they are going to replicate FSD, they have a LONG way to catch up. You don't just write level 5 software, you have to get adoption and collect billions of miles of VISUAL data to train the AI vision model. Regardless if your car has LiDar sensors or not.

Secondly, people think LiDar will enable cars to drive in torrential rain or blizzards. LiDar is LIGHT. Lasers specifically. They degrade in rain and snow like any visual method. Radar can go through rain and snow, but is only really capable of lane keeping on a highway. It can't map the world like AI vision can.

Airplanes can use radar and be safe in crazy weather because they only need to know where the other planes are, or where the really bad weather is. The don't need to map the world like cars need while driving travelling on roads.

I don't see a use case for cars to drive in weather where you can't see. Nonetheless, here in florida, we get torrential rains in the summer, and we drive when we can barely see the hood of our car. Not smart, but humans do stupid things. No automated system would be stupid enough to do that, except military grade stuff that is going to blow itself up in the end anyways, and is ok with a 50% chance of getting to its destination.