alt Hacker NewsFrom the article:
> pricing below US $200. That’s less than half of typical prices now, and it’s not even the full extent of the company’s ambition.
This means there are sensors available for like $500 or more. At 4 per car, this is still just $2000, which is a very reasonable cost add even for a midrange car.
And with price comparisons like this, I'm sure Chinese competitors aren't factored in, I'm sure the Chinese have stuff for cheaper.
So Affordable Lidar is not a limitation. Despite that, self-driving doesn't really exist outside of Waymo, which people take to assume that Lidar is their killer advantage, but with other cars having Lidar, I think that might not turn out to be the deciding facotr.
I'm not sure anyone today really thinks self driving hinges on the hardware. Comma does a surprisingly good job with very minimal hardware (in the form factor of an old Tom Tom!). The advantage is really the device's processing power (cramming enough compute in without making it crazy expensive) and the data that the manufacturer has about the environment and training data to handle edge cases. You can't just buy those things, because the people that have them would be your competitors.