It's a question that ultimately depends on the utilization economics pathway, which if you listen to folks like Tony Seba, is going to come from the side of robotaxi fleets, not personally owned vehicles.
If you own a taxi fleet, the cost structure will favor spending more on Lidar if it gets you to a level 4 or 5 result faster. Cars designed for personal use will tend towards seeing the feature as a consumer "add-on" and prefer cameras. Tesla's business has focused on this latter path, trying to capture high end users first and then mainstream the results.
But if Seba is correct and we take a logistic curve pathway with both EV and self-driving tech, the cost curve will price robotaxi fleets underneath all forms of ownership within just a few years; you get much better utility from your sensor investment if the same car is making a dozen trips every day, and the consumer pays "for what they use" instead of having an unused hunk of metal taking up parking space. At that point, adoption shoots up and the consumer add-on model doesn't have a leg to stand on. Camera tech might still get better and replace the sensor package, but the race, such as it is, would be won by whomever deploys a fleet at scale first.
If you own a taxi fleet, the cost structure will favor spending more on Lidar if it gets you to a level 4 or 5 result faster. Cars designed for personal use will tend towards seeing the feature as a consumer "add-on" and prefer cameras. Tesla's business has focused on this latter path, trying to capture high end users first and then mainstream the results.
But if Seba is correct and we take a logistic curve pathway with both EV and self-driving tech, the cost curve will price robotaxi fleets underneath all forms of ownership within just a few years; you get much better utility from your sensor investment if the same car is making a dozen trips every day, and the consumer pays "for what they use" instead of having an unused hunk of metal taking up parking space. At that point, adoption shoots up and the consumer add-on model doesn't have a leg to stand on. Camera tech might still get better and replace the sensor package, but the race, such as it is, would be won by whomever deploys a fleet at scale first.