Nissan Motor announced on Thursday that it will rely on radar sensors and cameras instead of lidar or light sensors for its autonomous driving technology due to their high cost and limited capabilities.
The Japanese automaker unveiled an updated autonomous driving technology a month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk called lidar a "future idea" technology for its high cost and uselessness.
βLIDAR currently has no way to surpass the potential of the latest radar and camera technologies,β Tetsuya Iijima, general manager of advanced automated driving technologies, told reporters at a briefing at Nissan headquarters. He noted the existing imbalance between the cost and capabilities of lidars.
Currently, the cost of lidars, which are produced in limited quantities, is a little less than $10. However, the technology is developing. Initially using bulky rotating devices placed on the roof of cars, lidar developers then moved to a more compact form factor. And now lidars can be placed on other parts of the car body.
It is expected that in the end, in mass production, their cost will be in the order of $200.
Currently, lidars are used in the development of autonomous driving systems by companies such as General Motors, Ford Motor and Waymo.
According to Reuters data, as of March this year, more than $50 billion in corporate and private investors have been directed to the development of lidars over the past three years by about 1 startups.
Source: 3dnews.ru