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a big drawback is not performance but that most lidars are expensive and fragile.

This was true... until recently when Luminar announced a fairly affordable (for an automobile BOM) ~$1k version to be available this year. https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/12/luminar-affordable-lidar...

Article clearly mentions that these will be ready for production not before year 2022, until then it's all speculation.

the draw back for autonomy you need to recognize objects.