You provided no evidence for the hype claim but even then you are contradicting yourself:
Statement A: Tesla is just hyping autonomous driving since no technology can deliver fully autonomous driving right now.
Statement ~A: Low-cost LIDAR is available to any high-volume customer, of which Tesla is one, given Model 3 demand. And LIDAR can deliver fully autonomous driving.
The point simply being, I have a hard time believing that even with good-looking, cheap LIDAR being a possibility, as you claim, Tesla chose to go with an inferior sensor suite, for no apparent reason.
What they're doing now is a minor retrofit to their existing crashes-into-big-solid-objects "autopilot".
The Model 3 is at least two years away. By then, the technology should be better.
Volvo already has a concealed LIDAR in their self driving car.[1] Volvo will put 100 self-driving cars in the hands of ordinary drivers in Sweden in 2017. This is self-driving by the pros. Makes Tesla look amateurish.[2]
And Volvo is way ahead on marketing self-driving.[3]
Statement A: Tesla is just hyping autonomous driving since no technology can deliver fully autonomous driving right now.
Statement ~A: Low-cost LIDAR is available to any high-volume customer, of which Tesla is one, given Model 3 demand. And LIDAR can deliver fully autonomous driving.
The point simply being, I have a hard time believing that even with good-looking, cheap LIDAR being a possibility, as you claim, Tesla chose to go with an inferior sensor suite, for no apparent reason.