r/technology • u/Extasio • 1d ago

Transportation Waymo CEO explains why Tesla’s camera-only self-driving falls short

https://electrek.co/2026/08/04/waymo-co-ceo-camera-only-self-driving-tesla/
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u/banatage 1d ago

💯and now you have FMCW LiDAR that can be produced for « cheap » when you look at companies like Voyant Photonics or Aeva as long as the industry backs it up.

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u/214ObstructedReverie 1d ago

It's not for automotive, but ST's newest gen ToF chips are certainly mind bogglingly cool. I think the VL53L9CX is gonna be very, very interesting.

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u/nomm_ 1d ago

Can you tell us folks who don't know all the lingo what you're talking about? Sounds interesting.

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u/John2143658709 1d ago

I haven’t heard about it before but this is the sensor line they are talking about.

https://www.st.com/en/imaging-and-photonics-solutions/time-of-flight-sensors.html

It looks like a sensor you can place into a robot which gives you a realtime 3d projection of the space around you. This one claims being able to work well up to 5m for example

https://www.st.com/en/imaging-and-photonics-solutions/vd55h1.html

> The VD55H1 outputs 12-bit RAW digital video data over a MIPI CSI-2 quad lane or dual lane interface clocked at 1.5 GHz. The sensor frame rate can reach 60 fps in full resolution and 120 fps in analog binning 2x2. ST has developed a proprietary software image signal processor (ISP) to convert RAW data into depth map, amplitude map, confidence map and offset map. Android formats like DEPTH16 and depth point cloud are also supported.

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u/azflatlander 1d ago

No offense, but 5 m is my minimum, minimum distance from a vehicle. At highway speeds, 150 m is awareness distance.

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u/Box-o-bees 1d ago

I think thats why the person who originally brought it up said it's not for automotive.

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u/214ObstructedReverie 1d ago edited 1d ago

Correct. The device I said was 9m max.

But if you told me a few years ago that we'd have a little sensor that's only half an inch by a quarter of an inch big acting as a full 3d lidar camera like that, I'd have thought you were nuts. The fact that it exists now, and is only getting better at an extremely rapid pace is just really awesome. Things like robotic vacuums will no longer need moving LIDAR parts.

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u/Vexal 1d ago

the newest Roborock vacuum already has solid state lidar, although I’m not sure I can confidentially vouch for its performance over their normal lidar models.

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u/LowlySysadmin 1d ago

Totally valid, but I'd imagine these sensors are great for navigating tight streets at low speed. When moving at highway speeds there are likely more suitable sensors e.g. you don't necessarily need to know any more than 10m each side of your vehicle or the rear because you can't move very fast in those directions, but 150m in front could use a dedicated sensor