I don't see how you'd draw that conclusion. It seems possible to have a workable, purely optical solution. Our workable solution today relies purely on optical (human drivers).
Cameras don't have the same dynamic range of the human eye. A more fair test would be giving someone remote control of a Tesla with only access to the video footage.
I think cameras will hit parity with the human eye, but the question is will it happen before or after Lidar becomes more affordable and compact.
The eye's dynamic range at any point in time is actually pretty bad. It's easy to beat the range of the retina with a camera sensor. The human eye can also adjust iris size and light sensitivity, and a camera can match it by adjusting iris size and exposure time. You're probably want a secondary camera for full night vision, but that's not very relevant for driving with headlights anyway.
