19th February 2023 – (Palo Alto) Tesla has been spotted testing a massive new lidar sensor on a Semi prototype and a Cybertruck prototype. Lidar, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a technology used to determine ranges by targeting an object with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has previously dismissed lidar as a distraction to achieving full self-driving capability and instead opted for computer vision using cameras. However, Tesla still uses lidar for its Autopilot and self-driving effort, but it’s not in its sensor suite on its actual vehicles. Instead, Tesla uses lidar sensors on prototypes for the process of ground truthing its own sensors. This new lidar sensor spotted on the Semi prototype and Cybertruck prototype is likely being used to ground truth data for the Autopilot/self-driving sensor suite on those new vehicles. It is also being used to test the cameras and whole sensor suite for the Tesla Semi, which was not equipped with Autopilot or self-driving technology when it was first released.
