Lidar

Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) is a laser-based ranging sensor that produces 3D point clouds of the environment, typically scanning at 10–25 Hz with centimeter-level accuracy. Standard in most autonomous-vehicle stacks — Waymo, Cruise, Zoox, Nuro — and in many humanoid perception architectures. Notably absent from Tesla's autonomy stack, which uses cameras only.

The distinction matters because lidar-vs-vision-only is one of the most significant strategic divides in physical AI. Lidar provides direct depth measurement and works in conditions where cameras struggle (low light, glare, fog); vision is cheaper and matches human perceptual modality. Waymo argues lidar redundancy is essential for the safety case; Tesla argues camera-equivalent perception is sufficient at scale. The comparative safety record hasn't been definitive enough to settle the architectural question.