This is exactly why Waymo and Cruise and such believe autonomy Level 3 or so is utterly dangerous and have intentionally skipped it entirely.
> The grim statistics provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also show that drivers on rural roads die at a rate 2.5 times higher per mile traveled than on urban highways. Urban drivers travel twice as many miles but suffer close to half the fatal accidents. [1]
Could this explain away Musk's AP safety claims, given that it's mostly used on highways?
[1] https://www.npr.org/2009/11/29/120716625/the-deadliest-roads...
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-...
"Anyone who relies on LiDAR is doomed. Doomed. It's like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices. One is bad, and now you want to put in a whole bunch of them. That's ridiculous."
Companies using LIDAR? "They bet wrong".
People describing how stereo cameras don't inherently see 3D? "Baloney. Based on eyesight".
Companies that have spent years and billions developing and testing autonomy? "Almost certain they are wrong".
"Sure it’s laggier but with dedicated silicon that’s a non-issue.
Fact is vision is more than adequate. And lidar is literally blind."
There's no evidence that I have seen that suggests vision-based autonomy will not be sufficient. Tesla is not the only one using the approach. Lidar has its own problem with cost and that it literally cannot see.
It's a little more compelling on the data side but also goes into Lidar vs vision.
It might be controversial at this point to assert that vision is better. But I don't think it's controversial any longer to assert that vision is sufficient.
Given that driving and roads are currently set up for vision and Lidar will never be able to "see", it seems very reasonable to think vision could ultimately be better.
On the other hand, humans do not have lidar systems in their head, and so lidar is the real unproven technology. It's also clear that lidar is especially lacking in situations which require seeing longer distances (like say, driving!)
To be fair, lidar is winning in terms of problems vs. miles driven, but I believe their advancement will plateau far sooner (and perhaps permanently) than computer vision based systems.
We'll find out in a few years...