It's the 'redundant' thing I argue against.

I don't agree it's a distraction, it's just more data for the model. More data should be good! There's enough money in this field to invest in everything* , and it's probably easier to add this in advance than to retrofit this in (Surely the retrofitted result would be inferior compared to just having LIDAR from the beginning so that the model can properly account for it).

As for dense fog, I am sure that even if LIDAR doesn't work, there's some other kind of no-human-equivalent sensor which does work.

[EDIT: A LIDAR-based system to see through fog: https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/system-helps-s... ]

* ok, not everything, but most companies seem to do fine with LIDAR.