PRAVDA
Google's Waymo Reduces Lidar Cost 90% in Effort to Scale Self-Driving Cars - Business Insiderhttps://www.businessinsider.com/googles-waymo-reduces-lidar-cost-90-in-effort-to-scale-self-driving-cars-2017-1"Just a few years ago, a single top-of-the-range lidar cost upwards of $75,000. Today, we’ve brought down that cost by more than 90%," Krafcik said. "As we look to scale, we will do even better, with the goal of making this technology accessible to millions of people."
Waymo is also building all of its self-driving car hardware in-house to ensure that it can scale, Krafcik said.
If Waymo has indeed managed to reduce that top-range lidar cost by more than 90%, the company is looking at a price of roughly $7,500 per sensor. Waymo originally used lidar manufactured by Velodyne in its early prototype cars.
Since its collaboration with Waymo, Velodyne has reduced the price of its lidar to range from $8,000 to $30,000, depending on how many lasers it shoots out. Ford and China-based internet company Baidu have both invested $150 million in Velodyne for their self-driving car efforts.