This is a mischaracterization of what he is saying. Humans are unable to drive without vision. Even Chris Urmson agrees that LiDAR is a crutch that measures distance as opposed to computing it (albeit it only works in perfect weather). Musk is saying that if you are going to use a sensor to measure distance, don’t use photons in the visible light spectrum. Instead use photons that can penetrate objects (microwaves) to capture information that you wouldn’t have. The challenge is building a high-precision RADAR, which Tesla is attempting to do. Some HW4 vehicles have it but it’s unclear whether it is required or not. Ultimately, building a L4 AV requires solving very difficult problems in computer vision, which is exactly what they are trying to do
Musk did not publicly endorse high resolution radar until recently, and using high resolution radar is not a unique feature of Teslas. Waymo currently has 5 high resolution radars on their cars.
Given what is public now, I'd speculate that perhaps they were working on replacing radar all this time. Then they used vision as an excuse to dump the existing radar early when there was a parts shortage.
I see Musk acting a lot like Jobs in certain ways. They were both very cagey about the future direction of their products. Although Musk didn't exactly backtrack on radar, he wasn't transparent about Tesla's plans either. You don't telegraph your moves to your competitors. Similarly, I'd be very surprised if Tesla wasn't keeping an eye out for lidar crossing a specific cost/function threshold. They're not saying that aloud, though.
This is anachronic. Musk was making the vision argument to claim that Teslas sold at the time (which lacked any kind of LIDAR or radar) had all of the hardware they needed to do FSD, which was sold as "just a few months away via software update". I believe that they still make this claim officially, since it's important to deny that they dif false advertising on this front.
Tesla has been working on building a high res radar since 2018 and have yet to officially announce anything. Tesla dropped radar in new vehicles in mid-2021.
Musk has been claiming since 2018 that Teslas sold at the time have all the hardware needed to be fully independent driverless taxis. He made this claim very very clearly in conferences and marketing materials. And Teslas sold at the time only had cameras.
That he later may have changed his tune is probably true, as reality does eventually catch up even with someone like him.
