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Elon Musk called lidar a ‘crutch,’ but now Tesla is reportedly testing Luminar’s laser sensors
Bloomberg confirmed that the two companies have a partnership
By Andrew J. Hawkins@andyjayhawk May 24, 2021, 2:19pm EDT
A Tesla Model Y was photographed in Florida sporting rooftop lidar sensors made by buzzy sensor manufacturer Luminar. The sighting caused a bit of a stir among Tesla watchers, given Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s well-established disdain for the laser sensors commonly used by autonomous vehicle companies to create 3D maps of their environment.
Even more notably, Tesla has reportedly entered a partnership with Luminar to use lidar for “testing and developing,” according to Bloomberg. What exactly this partnership entails we don’t know for sure — neither company is commenting. But it could point to some shortcomings in the technology Tesla is using to power its “Full Self-Driving” driver assist feature.
The vehicle was spotted last week in Palm Beach, Florida, by Grayson Brulte, a consultant for the AV industry who lives in the area. After Brulte tweeted the photos of the Model Y with a rooftop rack of lidar sensors on May 20th, Luminar’s stock surged to its highest level yet. (The Florida-based company recently went public after being acquired by a “blank check” special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.)
Luminar sold the lidar to Tesla as part of an agreement between the two companies, according to Bloomberg. Also, the Model Y was sporting a manufacturer’s license plate that is registered to Tesla in California. The same plate has been spotted on other Tesla vehicles, including a prototype of the Cybertruck.
It’s unlikely that Tesla will reverse its position on lidar based on a single vehicle. As Guidehouse’s Sam Abuelsamid told Bloomberg, it’s more likely that Tesla is using Luminar’s lidar to validate its Full Self-Driving feature. But it’s still a noteworthy development given Musk’s vocal animosity toward the sensor. In a 2018 earnings call, Musk said, “In my view, it’s a crutch that will drive companies to a local maximum that they will find very hard to get out of.” He added, “Perhaps I am wrong, and I will look like a fool. But I am quite certain that I am not.”
“PERHAPS I AM WRONG, AND I WILL LOOK LIKE A FOOL. BUT I AM QUITE CERTAIN THAT I AM NOT.”
Then a year later, he called lidar “a fool’s errand” during a presentation on Tesla’s efforts to build fully autonomous vehicles. “[A]nyone relying on LIDAR is doomed,” he added. “Doomed. Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices... you’ll see.”
Musk said Tesla is trying to tackle a much bigger problem: passive optical recognition. This is why Tesla is banking on cameras as the key piece of hardware for autonomous vehicles. With their ever-increasing pixel resolution and the low price point, camera sensors are seen as indispensable for advanced driver assistance systems (like Tesla’s Autopilot) and fully autonomous systems. For Tesla, cameras are everything.
Musk also walked back some of those comments in recent months. In a chat on Clubhouse, Musk admitted to “talking smack” about lidar but noted that SpaceX — his other company — has developed its own versions of the laser sensors to assist the Dragon capsule. In a recent earnings call, Musk spoke about moving away from using radar, stating, “We believe that a vision-only system is ultimately all that is needed for full autonomy.”
Luminar, which is based in Florida, went public last year via a reverse merger with a SPAC. That merger valued the company at approximately $2.9 billion in “implied pro forma enterprise value,” with an equity value of $3.4 billion at closing. Luminar is also working with Pony.ai, Airbus, Volvo, Audi, and Toyota Research Institute.
SOURCE: THE VERGE
Tesla Tests Luminar Sensor Musk Scorned as ‘Fool’s Errand’
Ed Ludlow, Gabrielle Coppola and Dana Hull
(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc., whose boss Elon Musk says he can develop a fully self-driving car without using laser-sensor technology, has a contract to use such sensors from Luminar Technologies Inc. for testing and development, according to people familiar with the matter.
A photo of a Tesla Model Y with a roof rack of lidar sensors posted to Twitter on Thursday stoked speculation that the companies were working together, sending Orlando, Florida-based Luminar’s shares up more than 10% that day. While similar images of Teslas with lidar sensors have popped up before on social media, it was unclear until now what the relationship is between Tesla and Luminar.
Luminar sold Tesla the sensors on that Model Y as part of an agreement between the companies, some of the people said, requesting anonymity because the information is private. In addition, Bloomberg News confirmed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that the manufacturer’s license plate on the photographed vehicle belongs to Tesla. The same manufacturer’s plate has been spotted on other Tesla vehicles, including a prototype of the forthcoming Cybertruck.
Luminar rose in early trading Monday. A Luminar representative declined to comment. Multiple Tesla executives contacted by Bloomberg didn’t respond to a request for comment. Tesla has disbanded its media relations department.
The Model Y with the sensors was spotted in Palm Beach, Florida, around 8 a.m. Thursday by Grayson Brulte, a consultant to the autonomous-vehicle industry who lives in the area. The photos he posted to Twitter fanned market speculation that Chief Executive Officer Musk might be hedging his claim that he can develop a camera-only self-driving system, without the radar and laser sensors embraced by competitors.
Luminar’s shares pared a gain of as much as 9.8% to trade up 4.7% to $22.42 as of 9:44 a.m. in New York. The stock had surged on May 20 to the highest level in more than three weeks and its ticker symbol, LAZR, was shared widely on Twitter in speculation that it had supplied the sensor suite.
It’s not clear what Tesla’s intentions are with Luminar’s lidar, the people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Tesla engineers could be benchmarking their camera-centric self-driving system against lidar; they also could be testing lidar for future use.
Any suggestion that Musk would change course to adopt lidar is unrealistic, said Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst with Guidehouse Insights.
“The more likely scenario is they are using the Luminar lidars to validate their camera-based FSD system,” Abuelsamid said in an interview, using an acronym for full self-driving. “If they made that change, it would effectively deprecate their entire fleet of vehicles. They are not going to retrofit one million vehicles.”
Key Technology
Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a key technology for the world’s leading automakers, tech companies and startups as they race to make fully autonomous cars a reality. Lidar uses lasers to build a three-dimensional image of the surrounding landscape, which is critical to how the vehicle perceives the environment, predicts the behavior of pedestrians and other vehicles, and plans how to safely navigate roads.
Musk has been a lone, and loud, voice saying that lidar isn’t necessary.
“Lidar is a fool’s errand,” he said during Tesla’s “Autonomy Day” for investors in April 2019. “Anyone relying on lidar is doomed.”
Luminar, which went public in a $3.4 billion reverse merger last year, has production agreements to supply lidar sensors to Volvo Car AB and the flagship R brand of SAIC Motor Corp., China’s biggest automaker.
Read more: With Robotaxis Still a Distant Dream, Lidar Makes Itself Useful
More recently, Musk has softened some of his public comments on lidar technology. In an appearance on the audio chatroom Clubhouse earlier this year, he admitted to “talking smack” about lidar and said that SpaceX -- the rocket company Musk also leads -- developed its own internal lidar to aid the SpaceX Dragon capsule. “Obviously if I hated lidar I wouldn’t have done that,” Musk said. “However, for driving on real world roads you have to solve vision, understanding objects.”
On an earnings call last month, Musk suggested Tesla is also moving away from radar, which, along with lidar and cameras, is one of the three technologies the industry has viewed as critical sensor hardware needed to reach a future of self-driving vehicles.
Analyst Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley called that a bold and risky move. Jeff Osborne of Cowen & Co. went a bit further: “We continue to question Tesla’s approach to vehicle automation,” he wrote in a note to clients. “In our view this is unlikely to succeed.”
SOURCE: YAHOO FINANCE
Bloomberg confirmed that the two companies have a partnership
By Andrew J. Hawkins@andyjayhawk May 24, 2021, 2:19pm EDT
A Tesla Model Y was photographed in Florida sporting rooftop lidar sensors made by buzzy sensor manufacturer Luminar. The sighting caused a bit of a stir among Tesla watchers, given Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s well-established disdain for the laser sensors commonly used by autonomous vehicle companies to create 3D maps of their environment.
Even more notably, Tesla has reportedly entered a partnership with Luminar to use lidar for “testing and developing,” according to Bloomberg. What exactly this partnership entails we don’t know for sure — neither company is commenting. But it could point to some shortcomings in the technology Tesla is using to power its “Full Self-Driving” driver assist feature.
The vehicle was spotted last week in Palm Beach, Florida, by Grayson Brulte, a consultant for the AV industry who lives in the area. After Brulte tweeted the photos of the Model Y with a rooftop rack of lidar sensors on May 20th, Luminar’s stock surged to its highest level yet. (The Florida-based company recently went public after being acquired by a “blank check” special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.)
Luminar sold the lidar to Tesla as part of an agreement between the two companies, according to Bloomberg. Also, the Model Y was sporting a manufacturer’s license plate that is registered to Tesla in California. The same plate has been spotted on other Tesla vehicles, including a prototype of the Cybertruck.
It’s unlikely that Tesla will reverse its position on lidar based on a single vehicle. As Guidehouse’s Sam Abuelsamid told Bloomberg, it’s more likely that Tesla is using Luminar’s lidar to validate its Full Self-Driving feature. But it’s still a noteworthy development given Musk’s vocal animosity toward the sensor. In a 2018 earnings call, Musk said, “In my view, it’s a crutch that will drive companies to a local maximum that they will find very hard to get out of.” He added, “Perhaps I am wrong, and I will look like a fool. But I am quite certain that I am not.”
“PERHAPS I AM WRONG, AND I WILL LOOK LIKE A FOOL. BUT I AM QUITE CERTAIN THAT I AM NOT.”
Then a year later, he called lidar “a fool’s errand” during a presentation on Tesla’s efforts to build fully autonomous vehicles. “[A]nyone relying on LIDAR is doomed,” he added. “Doomed. Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices... you’ll see.”
Musk said Tesla is trying to tackle a much bigger problem: passive optical recognition. This is why Tesla is banking on cameras as the key piece of hardware for autonomous vehicles. With their ever-increasing pixel resolution and the low price point, camera sensors are seen as indispensable for advanced driver assistance systems (like Tesla’s Autopilot) and fully autonomous systems. For Tesla, cameras are everything.
Musk also walked back some of those comments in recent months. In a chat on Clubhouse, Musk admitted to “talking smack” about lidar but noted that SpaceX — his other company — has developed its own versions of the laser sensors to assist the Dragon capsule. In a recent earnings call, Musk spoke about moving away from using radar, stating, “We believe that a vision-only system is ultimately all that is needed for full autonomy.”
Luminar, which is based in Florida, went public last year via a reverse merger with a SPAC. That merger valued the company at approximately $2.9 billion in “implied pro forma enterprise value,” with an equity value of $3.4 billion at closing. Luminar is also working with Pony.ai, Airbus, Volvo, Audi, and Toyota Research Institute.
SOURCE: THE VERGE
Tesla Tests Luminar Sensor Musk Scorned as ‘Fool’s Errand’
Ed Ludlow, Gabrielle Coppola and Dana Hull
(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc., whose boss Elon Musk says he can develop a fully self-driving car without using laser-sensor technology, has a contract to use such sensors from Luminar Technologies Inc. for testing and development, according to people familiar with the matter.
A photo of a Tesla Model Y with a roof rack of lidar sensors posted to Twitter on Thursday stoked speculation that the companies were working together, sending Orlando, Florida-based Luminar’s shares up more than 10% that day. While similar images of Teslas with lidar sensors have popped up before on social media, it was unclear until now what the relationship is between Tesla and Luminar.
Luminar sold Tesla the sensors on that Model Y as part of an agreement between the companies, some of the people said, requesting anonymity because the information is private. In addition, Bloomberg News confirmed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that the manufacturer’s license plate on the photographed vehicle belongs to Tesla. The same manufacturer’s plate has been spotted on other Tesla vehicles, including a prototype of the forthcoming Cybertruck.
Luminar rose in early trading Monday. A Luminar representative declined to comment. Multiple Tesla executives contacted by Bloomberg didn’t respond to a request for comment. Tesla has disbanded its media relations department.
The Model Y with the sensors was spotted in Palm Beach, Florida, around 8 a.m. Thursday by Grayson Brulte, a consultant to the autonomous-vehicle industry who lives in the area. The photos he posted to Twitter fanned market speculation that Chief Executive Officer Musk might be hedging his claim that he can develop a camera-only self-driving system, without the radar and laser sensors embraced by competitors.
Luminar’s shares pared a gain of as much as 9.8% to trade up 4.7% to $22.42 as of 9:44 a.m. in New York. The stock had surged on May 20 to the highest level in more than three weeks and its ticker symbol, LAZR, was shared widely on Twitter in speculation that it had supplied the sensor suite.
It’s not clear what Tesla’s intentions are with Luminar’s lidar, the people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Tesla engineers could be benchmarking their camera-centric self-driving system against lidar; they also could be testing lidar for future use.
Any suggestion that Musk would change course to adopt lidar is unrealistic, said Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst with Guidehouse Insights.
“The more likely scenario is they are using the Luminar lidars to validate their camera-based FSD system,” Abuelsamid said in an interview, using an acronym for full self-driving. “If they made that change, it would effectively deprecate their entire fleet of vehicles. They are not going to retrofit one million vehicles.”
Key Technology
Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a key technology for the world’s leading automakers, tech companies and startups as they race to make fully autonomous cars a reality. Lidar uses lasers to build a three-dimensional image of the surrounding landscape, which is critical to how the vehicle perceives the environment, predicts the behavior of pedestrians and other vehicles, and plans how to safely navigate roads.
Musk has been a lone, and loud, voice saying that lidar isn’t necessary.
“Lidar is a fool’s errand,” he said during Tesla’s “Autonomy Day” for investors in April 2019. “Anyone relying on lidar is doomed.”
Luminar, which went public in a $3.4 billion reverse merger last year, has production agreements to supply lidar sensors to Volvo Car AB and the flagship R brand of SAIC Motor Corp., China’s biggest automaker.
Read more: With Robotaxis Still a Distant Dream, Lidar Makes Itself Useful
More recently, Musk has softened some of his public comments on lidar technology. In an appearance on the audio chatroom Clubhouse earlier this year, he admitted to “talking smack” about lidar and said that SpaceX -- the rocket company Musk also leads -- developed its own internal lidar to aid the SpaceX Dragon capsule. “Obviously if I hated lidar I wouldn’t have done that,” Musk said. “However, for driving on real world roads you have to solve vision, understanding objects.”
On an earnings call last month, Musk suggested Tesla is also moving away from radar, which, along with lidar and cameras, is one of the three technologies the industry has viewed as critical sensor hardware needed to reach a future of self-driving vehicles.
Analyst Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley called that a bold and risky move. Jeff Osborne of Cowen & Co. went a bit further: “We continue to question Tesla’s approach to vehicle automation,” he wrote in a note to clients. “In our view this is unlikely to succeed.”
SOURCE: YAHOO FINANCE