Well but Tesla cars don't have brains. Maybe the lack of lidars makes the task 100 times harder, i.e. de facto impossible. We don't know. This is a big risk for Tesla but they didn't have a choice. If lidars were as cheap as cameras, of course they would use them.
On the other hand, Waymo et. al. are not risking anything by using lidars. If they turn out to be redundant, it should be easy to remove them cheaply.
On the other hand, Waymo et. al. are not risking anything by using lidars. If they turn out to be redundant, it should be easy to remove them cheaply.