Will most self-driving cars in 2029 use LIDAR?
75
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2029
29%
chance

At the end of 2029, I will make an assessment of the total number of 4-wheel cars in the US, whether they be owned or leased by individuals, or whether they are still parts of experimental fleets from self-driving car companies. I will try to determine the total number of such cars that use some form of LIDAR, and if more than half do, this resolves YES. Otherwise, it resolves NO.

Update for detail: What I am going for here is the sort of vehicles that Tesla, Waymo, Cruise etc. are making. Vehicles that are ostensibly designed to drive themselves (even if in terms of software, they might not be able to do that yet with 100% reliability). In terms of the level system, this maps on to about L3 and above.

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bought Ṁ100 of YES

Easy “Yes” considering the advantages of using multiple methods in tandem - it’s not either/or. Since this question just concerns whether LiDAR will be included in the majority of the baskets of sensing technologies used by self-driving and not whether it’s the predominant or only one used, “Yes” is massively undervalued

2 traders bought Ṁ230 NO
predicts NO

@SteveAcomb if I understand correctly, currently automotive lidar market is less than half a million units a year. From the reports I've seen it is expected to grow at about 5-20% a year in revenue, probably slightly more in terms of volume in units. Let's say it will grow at 30%. Then by the end of 2029 about 11 million cars with lidars will have been added. Tesla alone will produce that amount of cars by 2029 without any growth at all (1.8 million*7 years =12.6 million), and they won't use lidars and will be L3-capable (they are already L3-capable even though they are classified as L2 for now).

predicts YES

Automated Valet Parking can be considered level 4 and works without LIDAR. However, it is just for parking in special garages. I assume, that doesn’t count.

bought Ṁ10 of YES

Please could you clarify the resolution criteria in terms of automation levels?

I believe most L4+ vehicles will use LIDAR.

I believe most L2/3 (which still require a human responsibility) vehicles will not use LIDAR. These are often described as 'self-driving' so there's some potential ambiguity here.

Or in simple terms avoiding jargon I'd state this as "vehicles that can legally drive on public roads without a human occupant" (or similar), is that your intended meaning as well?

@CameronHolmes I think what I am going for here is the sort of vehicles that Tesla, Waymo, Cruise etc. are making. Vehicles that are ostensibly designed to drive themselves (even if in terms of software, they might not be able to do that yet with 100% reliability). Looking at a chart of the levels, this seems like L3, so I'm going to say L3 and above.

predicts YES

@BoltonBailey Thanks for the response, Tesla FSD is (at least currently) L2 so that would be excluded if you draw the line there.

L3 seems a reasonable as current L3 systems (such as Mercedes) do use LiDAR, but I expect by 2029 most L3 systems will probably not require it. Critically L3 systems do require a human driver though.

Should the resolution criteria mention self driving? Obviously most 4-wheel cars will not have lidar by 2029

Interested to see what people think about this. Karpathy seems pretty convinced that this should be NO, which doesn't make sense to me. I feel like LIDAR adds a possibly necessary layer of robustness and that the cost isn't that much more than the car itself, and could get cheaper.

predicts YES

@BoltonBailey For safety reasons LiDAR is necessity for sufficient redundancy imho.

bought Ṁ20 of NO

@MaxPayne redundancy of what? Isn't two cameras instead of one sufficiant redundancy?

@Berg Redundancy just does not cover hardware failure. What is some peculiar lighting conditions cause the cameras to not to work (both cameras have failed to detect an object). Having a different technology for sensing in that case results in better redundancy. I absolutely feel LIDAR is needed

bought Ṁ100 of YES

@Berg “Why do you need ears, a nose, a tongue, etc. when you already have two eyes?”

what a silly question

predicts NO

@SteveAcomb can a deaf person with anosmia drive a car?

@Berg I am sure they can. The question is do you want to be a passenger in such a car

predicts NO

@RajD and why not?

@Berg - Yes I would. Such people typically have their brains rewired to have acute sensory perceptions in other areas to compensate.

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