Tesla was criticized by many for opting to ditch radar and develop their self-driving technology using only cameras.
Toyota subsidiary Woven Planet has now joined Tesla and will also develop self-driving technology without expensive sensors such as LiDAR.
In an interview with Reuters, the company says it will use low-cost cameras to collect data and train its neural nets.
It hopes this low-cost approach will create a “breakthrough” that will drive down costs and at the same time scale up the technology.
Unlike Tesla however, the company isn’t expecting their technology to hit the road any time soon.
Instead, Toyota will continue to use LiDAR and radar for robotaxis and autonomous vehicles, but says the camera-based technology should catch up in the future.
“But in many, many years, it’s entirely possible that camera type technology can catch up and overtake some of the more advanced sensors,” said Michael Benisch, vice president of Engineering at Woven Planet.
“The question may be more about when and how long it will take to reach a level of safety and reliability. I don’t believe we know that yet,” he added.
While they may agree with Tesla on the vision-based approach, this disagree on how quickly it will happen.
Elon Musk says Tesla will achieve Full Self-Driving later this year, despite having made the same promise several years ago.
