Tesla Investor Says EV Giant Will 'Admit' It Needs Lidar Despite Elon Musk Calling It A Crutch

Tesla Inc. TSLA will admit they need Lidar to enable autonomous driving “at some point, ” according to Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management.

What Happened: “At some point they will admit they need LiDAR,” Gerber wrote on social media platform X, referring to the EV giant’s intent of enabling autonomous driving with cameras and artificial intelligence alone.

Lidar, short for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing technology that uses laser light to measure distances and create detailed three-dimensional representations of surfaces and objects.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has previously criticized Lidar, terming it a crutch. None of the company’s sold vehicles have lidars. In 2022, the company also removed ultrasonic sensors from its vehicles to rely solely on cameras.

“Did my best to warn people that LiDAR isn't optimal for cars. Roads are designed for biological neural nets & eyes, so digital neural nets & cameras will work best,” Musk said in Aug. 2023.

Gerber is not alone in feeling Tesla needs more hardware to enable autonomous driving.

"...you really do need significantly more hardware than Tesla is putting in the vehicles to build a robotaxi that's not just as safe but especially safer than a human," Zoox co-founder Jesse Levinson opined earlier this week while adding that there is a need for sensor data despite advancements in AI to protect against camera malfunctions and ensure fully safe rides.

Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous ride-hail company Waymo continues to use Lidar in its robotaxis. However, proponents of Tesla’s camera-only technology, such as Ark Invest, deem it to be an expensive choice.

According to Ark Invest analyst Brett Winton, Tesla can make its dedicated robotaxi offering – the Cybercab – at almost the same cost as it takes Waymo to install Lidar on its vehicles.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, meanwhile, believes both Waymo and Tesla will achieve autonomy at scale despite differences in approach. While Waymo's tech reduces the effort on the software with added hardware such as lidar and sensors, Tesla's model puts added weight on the software, he said.

"I think Elon eventually will get to viable scale but for the next 5 years I bet on Waymo," he said in an interview last month.

Why It Matters: During Tesla's third-quarter earnings call last month, Musk said that the company expects to start an autonomous ride-hail service in Texas and California starting next year, subject to regulatory approval.

However, the vehicles might not all operate as driverless robotaxis initially but with a driver as some states demand it until the company touches certain milestones in terms of miles and hours driven, the company then said.

However, Musk expressed confidence that the company will begin offering driverless paid rides sometime next year.

Tesla also unveiled a no-pedal, no-steering wheel dedicated robotaxi product last month called the Cybercab. Cybercab, Musk then said, will enter production “before 2027” and will be priced below $30,000.

Until then, Tesla's ride-hail fleet will be composed of the company’s Model 3 and Model Y with its full self-driving (FSD) driver assistance technology.

FSD currently requires active river supervision. However, Musk and Tesla are optimistic that it will enable vehicle autonomy with future versions of the software.

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