Unfortunately, cute ideas like that are popular. https://m.imgur.com/K1w16U3
Selfdriving is already going to be a hugely valuable technology even if it requires an extra few thousand dollars per vehicle for hardware. Why get greedy?
I assume Tesla skipped LIDAR not really because of greed, but because the end consumer price of the car wouldn't have made sense. The other players aren't currently trying to sell cars with LIDAR to consumers. Is there an entity that has passed on LIDAR for different reasons?
You're telling me that a new non-driverless car for say, $15k would outsell a (otherwise identical) driverless car for $25k? The value added by driverless is well above the cost of LIDAR.
Achieving marketable driverlessness first is going to be way more important than cutting costs slightly. Everyone else who doesn't achieve it early is going to be hosed, and no amount of cost cutting will help. They'll just become suppliers or licensees for whoever achieves and patents it first, contractually ceding the lion's share of the profits
Waymo is likely either targeting operators (not end consumers) or at least waiting until LIDAR is much cheaper before they do.
The painting lasted less than 24 hours though.
http://www.e-farsas.com/parede-desenhada-com-o-tunel-papa-le...
Perhaps not a crash, but I could see AI avoiding it by hanging behind.