There is a technology that can solve this laser pointer problem, that is, solid-state systems, but solid-state systems are much cheaper than traditional lidar systems. Claims that it has manufactured $ 250 components for use in so-called S3 cars. It’s a pity that the system’s fidelity is low. It’s only useful when the car is driving at very low speeds (below 10 miles per hour), otherwise it’s useless. Velodyne is also developing cheap solid-state components, but it promises that solid-state systems have no way to replace 360-degree laser systems.
The company’s CEO explained that the sensors they use try to avoid solid-state hardware, why? The main reason is that although the laser system is much more expensive, its image is also very good. To make driving safer, the clearer the image, the better. He also said: “If you have only a few points about an object, even if your machine learning technology is even better, it is useless, because you don’t know what it is. If you can only see something 30 meters away, when the car is When driving at the speed of a freeway, it is one second away. ”
Gremi Smith, head of the self-driving project at Oxford University, believes that the lidar industry may seek a balance between data quality and price. This balance will cause differentiation and make the difference in the time for high-speed driverless cars on the road. He said: “Compared with high-speed driverless cars, the price of the low-speed version may fall faster. If you want the laser to cover more than 250 meters, you must use a better laser. If you only drive in a low-speed environment , It can cover only 15 meters, so that cheaper sensors can be used. ”
Nonetheless, installing low-quality lidars for cars will still increase costs. Industry researchers and automakers believe that driverless hardware will increase the final car price by $ 8,000-10,000, but the actual cost may be higher. When you add all the hardware in the existing test platform, the final price is simply astronomical. Tesla said that it would make the radar system down to $ 8,000, which looks beautiful, but it also needs to install thousands of dollars of computer equipment, cameras, and inertial measurement units (which can come in handy when GPS is not available). Many people worry that the images drawn by Tesla radar are not clear enough.
In addition, if the company uses a high-definition green laser pointer radar system, it must switch to radar or shut down the system in foggy weather. In a recent interview with Axios, Luminar’s Russell said that manufacturers who want to retail driverless cars must do their utmost to ensure safety, and also reduce the “critical failure rate” to ensure that the image is extremely clear. Russell said that the driverless industry puts too much emphasis on cost reduction, and now developers need to concentrate on enhancing the security of the technology to make it unbreakable. The cost to make the technology perfect may range from $ 300,000 to $ 400,000. At this price, fleet owners are willing to pay, because ride sharing is a profitable business.