Comment by joefourier | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joefourier | Hacker News Reader

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Level 5 self driving is still theoretical at this point, and theoretically speaking, there is no reason to assume LIDAR is absolutely necessary for it. Computer vision based pipelines are theoretically capable of providing the same depth information as LIDAR, using stereo, camera arrays or even monocular SLAM.

The main obstacle for self-driving car is much more on the processing side than on the sensor side. After all, humans are able to drive with audio + stereo vision that's not even 360 degrees.

It could very well be that the reason Tesla's statement about "full self-driving car HW" is inaccurate is because of the lack of sufficient onboard computing power rather than the lack of sensors (IIRC they have an Nvidia X2 and GP106 onboard, which only have a total of about 4 SPFP TFLOPs).

No matter which way you slice it, Tesla should not be claiming the hardware required is present if the hardware requirements are, at best, theoretical.

If it turns out the hardware is not good enough I would expect them to replace it with something that is once hardware requirements are known.

They've given themselves enough wiggle room to never roll out Level 5 automation (and thus never admit they were wrong about what hardware it would require.)

>"Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval."

True. Tesla also claims to not really advertise.

Well, spinning hyperbole that fires up the clickbait is definitely effective advertising.

No, advertising is paid placement. What you’re describing is PR.

>"Computer vision based pipelines are theoretically capable of providing the same depth information as LIDAR, using stereo, camera arrays or even monocular SLAM."

Are there any companies that are taking the purely computer vision approach then?

>"(IIRC they have an Nvidia X2 and GP106 onboard, which only have a total of about 4 SPFP TFLOPs)."

Can you say how far off is that compute power from what is actually required for a "full self-driving" car?

Comma.ai

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