Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Your numbers are way off. Waymo reported 5 years ago their Jaguars cost between $120k-$150k. That was after reducing their LiDAR cost by 90% from $75,000 to ~$7500. Their newly announced 6th gen sensors are even cheaper.

LiDAR sensors are no longer expensive. We are seeing automakers including sub $1000 LiDARs. Granted they only offer L2 ADAS, but the rapid price cratering means it's only a matter of time for consumer-owned self driving cars.



That's likely still too expensive; sub-$1,000 would probably work. The currently deployed Waymos have 5 $7,500 (at cost) LiDAR sensors in them. That's $37.5k, almost exactly $10k short of the average new car sale price.

To be clear, I'm talking about the point where normal people get new cars that have self-driving. It's affordable for wealthy people now, and was available to the super wealthy before that. I think the whole package is going to have to get somewhere in the $5k-$10k range before it's "normal" to have a self-driving car and be able to afford the maintenance.

Even those super cheap LiDARs may be over $10k installed by the time you add the other sensors, compute, labor, etc. I have no idea what the lifetime of a LiDAR sensor is, so maintenance is a concern too.

I think we'll get there, but it'll be a while after robotaxis become a thing. The news seems to think LiDAR sensors will settle around $200, which would definitely be affordable.


> The currently deployed Waymos have 5 $7,500 (at cost) LiDAR sensors in them.

Only the "dome" LiDAR at the top costs $7500. The smaller perimeter LiDARs are much cheaper.


> The currently deployed Waymos have 5 $7,500[...]

This price from 5 years ago. How confident are you the unit price is still $7,500?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: