Elon Musk Doesn't 'Hate' LiDAR, Says It's Good For Space Vehicles — Not So Much For Those On The Road

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Monday reiterated his criticism of LiDAR technology on roads.

What Happened: The CEO said that he did his best to warn people that LiDAR isn’t ideal for cars. “Roads are designed for biological neural nets & eyes, so digital neural nets & cameras will work best,” Musk wrote.

He was responding to an X.com user’s post from May where they noted that Li Auto’s CEO Li Xiang has become a vision-based full self-driving (FSD) believer, probably leading him to drop LiDAR in upcoming vehicle models. The user was seemingly citing a local media report.

“I don't intrinsically hate that technology,” Musk clarified about LiDAR, while noting that his rocket manufacturing company’s Dragon spacecraft uses LiDAR for docking with the international space station. Earlier this week, on Sunday, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft called Endurance on the crew-7 mission docked to the station using the tech.

Why It Matters: In 2019, Musk slammed LiDAR as a "fool's errand" while adding that anyone relying on the technology is doomed. However, several players including Alphabet, Inc.’s self-driving unit Waymo and General Motors Corporation’s Cruise continue to use LiDAR on their autonomous vehicles.

On the other hand, Tesla uses camera vision and neural net processing, collectively called Tesla Vision, to deliver the company’s Autopilot and full-self driving as well as some active safety features. While Tesla vision requires solving real-world AI, it is fundamentally superior to LiDAR, Musk said on Saturday.

Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

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