Yes it is a questionable decision. But I think it wasn’t just being cheap. I think it’s because of liability for errors; when it comes to placing fault on a car in the legal system, a judge / jury is only going to look at video captures. They won’t understand the lidar data. So if the car makes a bad decision based on lidar when there’s a conflict with visual queues, it will be deemed that it made a mistake. So there’s not really any point to trying to work with the lidar data.
I don’t know if what you’re saying is true but refusing to use technology that would prevent accidents because it will be more difficult to explain the cause of the remaining accidents is a crazy take. And the other self driving car companies use lidar so the NTSB isn’t unfamiliar with the technology.
Yes it is a questionable decision. But I think it wasn’t just being cheap. I think it’s because of liability for errors; when it comes to placing fault on a car in the legal system, a judge / jury is only going to look at video captures. They won’t understand the lidar data. So if the car makes a bad decision based on lidar when there’s a conflict with visual queues, it will be deemed that it made a mistake. So there’s not really any point to trying to work with the lidar data.
I don’t know if what you’re saying is true but refusing to use technology that would prevent accidents because it will be more difficult to explain the cause of the remaining accidents is a crazy take. And the other self driving car companies use lidar so the NTSB isn’t unfamiliar with the technology.