Elon Musk doesn’t always stick to the truth, and it seems he might have been caught in a fib once again. He’s been against using lidar sensors in self-driving cars for a while, even saying other companies would “dump lidar.” But surprise, surprise—Tesla might actually be using lidar sensors.
During a report by lidar supplier Luminar Technologies on May 7, they said Tesla was their biggest lidar customer in the first quarter of 2024. They made around $2.1 million from Tesla’s purchases, which helped them when they were going through layoffs.
This is a big change for Tesla. They’ve always used fewer sensors than other companies for their driver-assist features like Autopilot. Musk has even said their cameras alone can make cars drive themselves, without lidar or radar.
But wait, there’s more! The Verge, a tech news site, has more to say about this. They think Tesla might be using lidar to test their Full Self-Driving feature before launching robotaxis. That’s a lot of lidar!
Historically, lidar has been really expensive, which is why Musk didn’t like it. He once said, “In cars, it’s freaking stupid. It’s expensive and unnecessary. You have expensive hardware that’s worthless on the car.” But now it looks like Tesla might be changing its mind, even if Musk still doesn’t admit it publicly.
