Like others have said, this would be less of a problem if Tesla relied on LIDAR like others. Tesla uniquely has this problem that's unsolveable because it's relying on cameras only.
I'm very curious how a LIDAR based system would have faired here. It very much looks like problem that would only appear with a limited vision-only system like Tesla has.
That all seems like a big stretch based upon some big assumptions to me. It is far from conclusive that LIDAR alone would make the difference in cases like this, due to the way sensors have to be fused together to handle these kinds of scenarios.
There are fair criticisms around Tesla's marketing and implementation, but I don't think "they should already have lidar on there" is really one of them.
Tesla has been very stubborn about avoiding LIDAR and this is what happens as a consequence. The rest of the self-driving scene fundamentally relies on LIDAR to get things working. Believe me, if cameras were sufficient people wouldn't use LIDAR . LIDAR is expensive. I have spoken to quite a few people in the field and the lack of LIDAR in Tesla vehicles baffles them.
Radar is not a substitute for LIDAR. Sound is really high latency and has terrible resolution.
I would like to see how often things like these happen with Waymo.
Somehow I doubt this problem is as simple as "add a LIDAR" considering there's probably at least one smart person at Tesla who has thought of that idea. Sure you might be right, but my impression is that the 1 in a million cases will still exist.
Tesla would be lucky if the extent of its challenges were having enough cameras pointing in the right direction. Tesla handicapped itself by only developing its driving systems with cameras and not lidar.
AFAIK Tesla uses cameras instead of LIDAR because LIDAR, by itself, will not be able to tell you what a thing is. It cannot tell you, for example, whether the thing standing at the side of the road is a stationary trash can or a human about to cross the road. Hence you have to solve vision anyway. And if you have to solve vision, you might as well go all in on cameras.
As far as I know, no car manufacturer ships cars equipped with LIDAR. Nor do they seem to have a camera setup as extensive as Tesla. So I fail to see how Tesla has painted itself into a corner. The worst case is, that they are not reaching full autonomy with the current hardware setup. It certainly would be a big marketing blunder if they don't, but if necessary they can add LIDAR to the production, if they choose to.
I don't think Tesla is truly anti-lidar, per se. In fact, I think if it was a practical technology they would add it to their toolbox.
But it's not practical. Lidar is currently EXTREMELY expensive.
And visual is better. It sees everything in all directions, and 99% of the same depth information lidar provides can be determined by two images separated in time.
As to safety, putting a bunch of inexpensive cameras on a car people can afford is way better than doubling the price of a car and making it unaffordable, just for some theoretical benefit beyond visual.
(teslas already have radar, long-range sonar and 8 cameras)
My guess is that there is so much technical debt that adding LIDAR is a tough choice for TESLA. They would need to throw out all the visual only data they have to-date and start over.
reply