LIDAR Cost Decline

Question- hasn’t the cost of LIDAR equipment dropped drastically in the past year or two?

Would Lidar really be all that expensive if it was used in mass produced driverless cars?

Lidar costs have come down. Now it is around $1,000 soon it will be under $500https://www.barrons.com/articles/lidar-is-the-future-of-auto...

A LIDAR sensor is a complex device with spinning motors, mirrors, lasers and more. Costs are coming down and less-expensive and more capable devices are coming to market. Once the price-points come way down, I wouldn't be surprised to see Tesla reconsider their decision to exclude them from their sensor platform.

I wonder if solid state LiDAR would be cheaper?

Not anymore.Complete LIDAR units are already available for under $500[1]. There are other, cheaper sensors which aren't as good as full LIDAR but are available for under $100[2].There are plenty of other options hitting the market soon too[3][1] http://www.teraranger.com/products/teraranger-lidar/[2] <a href="https://www.pulsedlight3d.com&

Isn't lidar super cheap now? Couldn't they retrofit it.

It is now cheap enough for GM and Volkswagen:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-25/lidar-sen...

I don't really believe it is possible. Lidars were the most expensive part and are much, much cheaper now, I can't really imagine how can they spend more than 100k$ of self driving hardware per car.

There's no inherit reason why lidar can't be cheap afaik (and it's already getting there - prices are dropping pretty rapidly).