BYD's cheapest electric cars to have Lidar self-driving tech

Lidar vs Vision: Capabilities, Cost, and Failure Modes

• Strong disagreement over whether lidar or cameras should be primary.
• Vision-only critics argue reconstructing 3D from cameras is compute‑hungry, fragile in edge cases (low sun, white trucks, bad weather), and gets harder as more edge cases are patched.
• Lidar advocates say it “gets range/depth for free,” greatly simplifying perception and handling many edge cases; vision is still required for semantics (lights, signs, turn signals).
• Others contend lidar has limits: can’t inherently read colors or markings, is vulnerable to spoofing/jamming, and could see widespread interference when many units are on the road.
• Some propose camera+lidar as analogous to “two pilots”: independent failure modes reduce catastrophic error risk; worst case, lidar adds little but doesn’t hurt.
• Lidar price‑collapse claims (~40×) are contested; cited “sub‑$200” units appear narrow-FOV, low-beam, and not yet matching high-end systems.

Safety, Interference, and Eye Risk

• Several comments insist automotive lidars are low power, near‑IR, and designed to be eye‑safe; risk is said to be lower than bright sunlight.
• Skeptics worry standards assume one lidar, not many; overlapping beams or malfunctioning scanners could increase retinal exposure, and there are reports of camera sensors being damaged.
• There's also concern that industry incentives might suppress evidence of subtle long‑term harm if it emerged.

Waymo vs Tesla FSD and ADAS

• One camp argues Waymo is clearly ahead: commercial driverless service in multiple cities, lower crash rates per mile, and true autonomy vs Tesla’s supervised ADAS.
• Tesla defenders report thousands of miles on recent FSD versions with few or no interventions, citing Tesla’s own safety stats as substantially better than average human driving.
• Others counter with concrete locations where FSD fails, misreads signals, or disengages, calling it unsafe in cities and only “OK” on highways.
• Dispute over metrics: anecdotes vs fleet-scale data; reliability claims require billions of miles, so individual experiences (positive or negative) are statistically weak.

Regulation, Liability, and System Design

• Some predict regulators (especially in Europe and certain US states) will eventually bar camera‑only systems above Level 3, or at least demand strong liability.
• Alternative proposal: allow any tech but require manufacturers to take full legal responsibility when “self-driving” is active; cited example of one OEM already doing this for its L3 mode.
• Debate over how tickets and blame should be assigned when no human is driving; consensus that responsibility ultimately lands on the operating company, though legal frameworks are still being built.

Training and Architecture for Lidar-Based Driving

• Clarified that “slap on lidar, get FSD” is false: you still need a sophisticated ML and software stack.
• Suggested approaches: log lidar while humans drive; label high-level situations (pedestrians, obstacles, paths) and train models to infer this from lidar; combine with camera-derived semantics.
• Others note simulation/ray tracing can generate synthetic lidar data for training and testing.

BYD’s Role and Global Market Impact

• BYD’s very cheap EVs with lidar are seen as a major disruption, especially given decent safety ratings and advanced driver-assist at low price points.
• Commenters in countries where these cars are sold (e.g., Australia, Europe) describe them as game‑changing and note heavy markups outside China plus rising protectionism and tariffs.
• Many expect US manufacturers to be shielded in the near term by tariffs and national‑security arguments (data exfiltration, “CCP spying”), but some think long‑term competition will be unavoidable.

Aesthetics, UX, and Longevity

• Roof‑mounted lidar “turrets” divide opinions: practical but visually intrusive; some argue consumers will eventually normalize them if the value is clear.
• Perception that Chinese products emphasize function over sleek design, in contrast to US brands that often prioritize aesthetics and screens.
• A subset of commenters don’t believe full self‑driving is near, but want robust, durable assist systems and traditional controls; concern that newer EVs (Chinese and otherwise) may age more like gadgets than 15‑year appliances.