Cameras vs Lasers: Tesla and Waymo

Earlier this month, as Tesla's robotaxi fleet in Austin extended its hours to 11pm, Elon Musk talked about his fear of the night: "Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark." That's the use case for lidar, the laser sensor that most autonomous-driving companies use. Musk called it "a fool's errand" in 2019, when a ubiquitous Velodyne lidar cost around $75,000, and doubled down on cameras alone. So far, the bet looks good. Tesla's FSD is the best of its kind, and by many measures ahead of Waymo's. It has sold 1.48 million FSD subscriptions, and when a Chinese car media company pitted 36 cars against highway obstacles, Tesla's camera-only Model 3 and X achieved the best score, beating several lidars. Even Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov agrees that "Humans of course can drive with just eyes." But lidars have come down in price dramatically. BYD, China's biggest automaker, includes lidar as a $1,700 upgrade on all its cars, even its budget Seagull, and its chairman Wang Chuanfu says that's "already at cost". Pony AI, a Chinese robotaxi company, says its total robotaxi cost, including lidars, is around $33,000, "cheaper than the lowest-spec Tesla Model 3". Not every Chinese automaker is a fan; Xpeng chairman He Xiaopeng has dropped lidars on his newer cars, saying "in cars it is no longer needed". But Chinese rules for the most advanced autonomous cars require more than one kind of sensor, and as of this spring, Baidu's lidar-equipped robotaxis had driven around 137 million driverless miles. The cat problem is a rebuttal, too. In October 2025, a Waymo with lasers hit and killed KitKat, a gray tabby cat who lived at a corner store in San Francisco's Mission District. And Musk told Electrek privately in 2021 that "vision with high-res radar would be better than pure vision." Cameras alone are good enough for most driving. And now that lidars may cost $200, the question is whether they're unnecessary ballast or cheap insurance for that once-in-a-while emergency on a dark night when you really need it (if vision alone can't figure it out). Images (cropped and graded), via Wikimedia Commons: Waymo Jaguar I-Pace — 9yz, CC BY 4.0; Apollo Go RT6 — S5A-0043, CC BY 4.0; Velodyne lidar — Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0; Tesla cameras — Votpuske, CC BY 4.0; Dmitri Dolgov — Collision Conf, CC BY 2.0; Wang Chuanfu — Alexander-93, CC BY-SA 4.0.