Report: Tesla's Buying LiDAR Sensors After All

by Chris Teague

Published: May 8th, 2024

report tesla s buying lidar sensors after all

Most of the media and internet pundits have been zeroed in on Tesla’s layoffs and what they could mean for the automaker and industry at large, but there’s another reported change in its operations that could signal a significant shift in how its vehicles are built. After CEO Elon Musk’s poo-pooing of LiDAR technology, Tesla now appears to be buying the sensors and has become a primary customer of a major supplier.

Luminar Technologies recently reported that Tesla was its largest LiDAR customer in the first quarter of 2024, with the automaker accounting for more than ten percent of its revenues during the first three months of the year. The technology uses lasers to build a picture of a vehicle’s surroundings, but Tesla has moved to camera/vision-based tech in its most recent builds.

While neither is perfect, the general consensus is that a combination of sensors, including camera, LiDAR, and other tech, is the best path forward. LiDAR is significantly more expensive than cameras alone, likely driving Tesla’s decision to cut it from production.

Reports of this move come as Tesla faces increased regulatory scrutiny for its driver assistance features, though much of its troubles come from how it monitors drivers’ behavior rather than external sensor functionality. It’s more likely that the automaker will employ LiDAR in its upcoming Robotaxi initiative, which is expected to be revealed in August.

Tesla would be well-served to consider employing LiDAR sensors in its consumer vehicles as well. Volvo will roll out the first Luminar sensors in the upcoming XC90, and criticisms of how vehicles read the world around them will only become more intense as time goes on. The automaker could use a win, and anything that helps convince regulators that it's focused on safety would be helpful to its cause.

[Image: kovop via Shutterstock]

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#Tesla #ElonMusk #LIDAR #luminartechnologies

Chris Teague

Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.

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6 of 9 comments

MaintenanceCosts on May 08, 2024

More or less an admission that the radar-only cars will never do anything that could reasonably be marketed as "Full Self-Driving."

1 Reply
- 28-Cars-Later on May 08, 2024
  
  "radar-only cars will never do anything that could reasonably be marketed as "Full Self-Driving.""
  Uh I think somethings wrong with mine, its picking up 183 aircraft headed to Pearl Harbor.
  
  4
AZFelix on May 08, 2024

I have always wondered if the poor ability of Tesla cars in detecting children was due to their using camera only systems. Optical geometry explains that a child half the height of an adult seems to have the same height as that same adult standing twice as far away from the viewer.

3 Reply
- See 2 previous
- D on May 08, 2024
  
  Makes sense, but could 2 cameras be used to get approximate distance?
  
  Like
- Jalop1991 on May 08, 2024
  
  I have always wondered if the poor ability of Tesla cars in detecting children was due to their using camera only systems.
  Tesla used all that technology in their sales department, aimed outward at the incoming customers.
  It worked well.
  
  1
- AZFelix on May 08, 2024
  
  @D Tesla does use multiple cameras and if the system uses an effective parallax depth calculating program it would determine distances to objects. Tesla has stated that their algorithm also uses object recognition as a key component of its driving software. This is where problems could arise since it would be told or 'learn' what an average human shape and size is. The potential for confusion occurs if the distance calculation process either lags or does not have enough data to correlate how far away the person is from the car. Thus a child standing nearer to the car is 'determined' to be an adult further down the car's direction of travel and by the time depth/distance calculations have enough information a collision is unavoidable.
  
  1

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