Tesla sold a million Model Ys last year. So having a safety increasing part like lidar would reduce the profit by hundreds millions. Removal of ultrasonic sensors saved Tesla tens of millions. Ok, model Y is a big car and I don’t aim for tightest parking spots anymore. But basically removal of anything is very profitable for Tesla. And vice versa adding something useful is very expensive.
It’s saved hundreds of millions at minimum. LiDAR is incredibly expensive hardware which is why they’re making it work well without it - it would make the cost of the cars really uncompetitive while also looking incredibly silly like Waymos. No one would buy them
