CEO Li Auto said that when driving at night in China, you are likely to see large trucks with broken taillights, which poses a challenge for camera recognition.
The debate continues over whether smart electric cars should carry LiDAR technology, with Li Auto’s CEO defending the use of the component in his company’s models.
“I think if Musk had driven on different highways in China in the depths of the night, he would have chosen to keep the LiDAR on the front as well,” Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Li Auto, said at a press conference. AI Talk happened yesterday.
Lee mentioned this in response to a question about why Li Auto uses LiDAR technology while Elon Musk’s Tesla does not.
Lee said Tesla takes safety seriously, but Musk needs to understand China’s driving environment.
Li Auto refrains from using LiDAR, not because the technology is bad, but because of safety, Li said.
“China is different from the United States. If you regularly drive at night in China, you will see large trucks with broken taillights, and large trucks with broken taillights may be parked on the main road,” said CEO Li Auto.
Currently, in an unlit environment deep into the night, cameras can only see objects a little more than 100 meters away at best, but LiDAR has a detection range of 200 metres, he said.
With the support of this LiDAR capability, Li Auto can implement the AEB (automatic emergency braking) function at a speed of 130 kilometers per hour, Li said.
“I think this is very important because our cars are family-oriented and the safety of everyone’s lives is very important,” he said.
“This is the fundamental reason why we still retain LiDAR technology and will continue to retain it in future models,” Lee added.
Tesla is a prominent proponent of its Pure Vision intelligent driving solution, and its management has expressed its dislike of LiDAR several times over the past few years.
On December 10, Grace Tao, Tesla’s vice president of external affairs, echoed Musk’s opinion on the path to self-driving in a Weibo post, saying that only pure vision will enable safer and smarter self-driving.
Road and traffic systems are designed for human eyes, optic nerves and brains. In such ways, only cameras, optical neural networks and autonomous driving devices can mimic human observation, perception and decision-making habits, making it possible to achieve driving results that rival or even exceed those of humans, Tao said.
If information from the radar and camera conflict with each other, the car’s brain will have difficulty making a decision, Tao said at the time, adding that adding LiDAR would also increase the cost of the car.
In China, LiDAR technology is now mainly used in all high-end electric cars.
Interestingly, Xpeng (NYSE:
Earlier this month, Xpeng filed regulatory filings for the facelifted G6 and G9 models, with the specifications noting the removal of the LiDAR option for both SUV (sport utility vehicle) models.
Xpeng files for the facelifted G6 and G9, both without the LiDAR option
