🧵 REPLYING TO @raines1220 (Raines):
┌─ "Elon always explains this without a concrete example, and that’s why most people still don’t really get the point, and fail to understand why disagreement would reduce safety. Let me provide one simple real-world example:
At night, LiDAR usually will have difficulty “seeing” a black tire on the road due to low reflectivity, but cameras with higher dynamic range can (even clearer than a human would). Real-world tests in China have demonstrated that a system with sensor fusion would be less likely to avoid a tire on the road during the night at high speed. This is mostly because the system decided to believe LiDAR that there is no obstacle on the road.
Also, recent safety tests performed by DCar in China showed that FSD outperformed every other sensor fusion system in safety testing, further demonstrating the advantage of a system trained with input that has a higher signal-to-noise ratio."
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💬 ELON'S REPLY:
LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation.
As I have said many times, there is a role for LiDAR in some circumstances and I personally oversaw the development of LiDAR for the SpaceX Dragon docking with Space Station. I am well aware of its strengths and weaknesses.