They are clearly lidar sensors from Luminar, which are based on a Tesla Model Y were discovered in the US state of Florida. That would not be unusual in itself. After all, lidar sensors are widely regarded as a key technology for autonomous driving.
The sighting is only unusual because Tesla boss Elon Musk has never made a secret of the fact that he considers lidar sensors on passenger cars to be dispensable even for autonomous self-driving modes.
Spotted in Palm Beach, Florida. A @Tesla Model Y with #LiDAR and CA Manufacturing (MFG) Plates. Can anyone offer details / insights? pic.twitter.com/5Uh4WU0U41
— Grayson Brulte (@gbrulte) May 20, 2021Partnership with Luminar causes speculation
As Bloomberg reports, it will probably not stay with the one sighting. Rather, Tesla has entered into a partnership with Luminar in order to use their lidar technology for “tests and development”. However, the exact scope of the partnership is not known.
The strikingly decorated vehicle was photographed last week in the city of Palm Beach, Florida. After the photos of the Model Y with a roof frame made of lidar sensors were shared on Twitter, the Luminar share reached its highest level to date. It must be said that Luminar has only been listed since the end of last year due to the merger with a SPAC.
Speculated is now what the sighting has to mean. It is unlikely that Musk simply changed his mind. Should a “crutch”, as Musk called the technology in 2018, have turned into useful technical equipment after all?
Tesla probably wants to test its technology against lidar
No, say other experts. It is more likely that Tesla will use the luminar lidar to validate the function of its own technical solution for autonomous driving against the 3D perception of lidar sensors – so to speak, to calibrate it. Even if that were the reason for using lidar, Musk would have contradicted himself at least a little.
After all, he hadn’t stopped saying that lidar technology was a crutch that would drive manufacturers astray. On the occasion of a presentation, Musk followed suit and described lidar as a “fool’s trick”. All manufacturers who rely on Lidar are “doomed,” said the Tesla boss full-bodied. These sensors are expensive but unnecessary. They are nothing more than “a bunch of expensive appendages”.
From his point of view, the ideal solution is passive optical recognition. For this reason, Tesla relies on cameras as the key hardware for autonomous vehicles. With their steadily increasing resolution and falling price, camera sensors are ideal, but also indispensable for advanced driver assistance systems such as Tesla’s autopilot and fully autonomous systems.
The lidar manufacturer Luminar is not put off by this. He cannot complain about a lack of success and works with Pony.ai, Airbus, Volvo, Audi and the Toyota Research Institute, among others.
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