The death of LiDAR has been greatly exaggerated

Thank God, that little taxi-sign-thingy on the roof of Volvo's and Lotusses (or is it Loti?) is going away. The little rooflump was the housing for the LiDAR sensor, but LiDAR is out at Geely. Why? That is a bit unclear.

If we are to believe Volvo, who had the sensor on the EX90 and ES90, it's because issues with the supply chain. Not enough LiDAR's can be delivered, so Volvo thought it would be best to scrap the whole thing and make the EX- and ES90 cheaper in the process. The fact the sensor was not working yet and therefore had no impact on the added safety it was supposed to deliver, was glossed over.

Lotus has a more believable story: according to someone at the company I spoke to, the brand decided to scrap the LiDAR because it's completely useless at the moment and adds a lot of complexity and costs which are not worth it. Scrapping it makes the cars easier to produce (Lotus has a pop-up LiDAR bump) and saves a couple of bucks, which helps make the cars a bit cheaper.

I could even argue that not having a LiDAR pop-up on the roof, makes the Lotus Eletre a better car. I got to drive one for the second time this month. One thing I kind of disliked on the earlier version with LiDAR is the fact the pop-up created a lot of wind noise when activating the driver assists. The new one doesn't have this pop-up and therefore doesn't have the added noise. Did I notice any difference in performance of the assisting systems? No I did not. Not at all, to be precise. If nobody had told me LiDAR was not there anymore, I wouldn't have noticed at all.

You probably know both car brands are part of Chinese giant Geely. This makes it seem like LiDAR is on the way out for all of the brands under its wings. And that would make perfect sense. Why? Did you read the words above? LiDAR doesn't do anything on cars yet.

And that also makes sense if you think about it. LiDAR is needed for autonomous driving, which - except for some Waymo's in the US - isn't here yet. And even if it would be here, governments would probably take their sweet ass time to approve it. Translation: LiDAR in consumer cars would probably be worth it in five, maybe even ten years time. The added benefit of the sensor would make Level 4 or 5 autonomous driving better and safer.

In other words, Geely killing off some bloatware. It is scrapping a technology we're not using and didn't ask for, at least not for a couple of years. And it gives the option of not having to pay for the components we didn't want or need in the first place. At least, at Lotus you can still opt for the LiDAR, but you'll have to pay for it (5080 euro's to be exact!). And by doing so you're effectively helping Geely gather data to make the sensor work. 

It's like Tesla's promise of delivering real full self driving, and letting buyers buy into that promise up front. Seemed cool and like a bargain when it all looked like it was going to happen soon. Looks a lot more like a scam now Mr. Musk has promised the tech will really be available next month, for years now. We thought LiDAR would prove to be a valuable technology that would help with safety and self driving, but reality called and told us that it probably wont happen for a couple more years.

In other news:

Rivian and VW really like the fruits of their labor coming from the partnership they've been in for about a year now. So much so, they think other car manufacturers would like to buy those fruits off them. It's a step you knew would come. I mean, it's a practice as old as car building itself. Selling and buying parts, or even sharing them, is nothing new. Let's just hope Rivian makes a fair bit of cash from the sales, because I do want the company to make it so far they'll sell the R2 or the R3 in Europe.

Do you remember a time Aston Martin wasn't a struggling car brand? Me neither. But that is all coming to an end now, because they're partnering with non-alcoholic beer brand BERO. You've probably never heard of BERO unless you really love Spider-man. That is because it's partly founded by Tom Holland, the guy who acts as Spider-man in a couple of the films. Anyway, BERO is now the official alcohol free beer brand of Aston Martin and will be for the next three years. Let's hope Tom at least gets a DB12 out of the deal.

Even if we don't see it that often, marketing stunts do go wrong sometimes. A seemingly easy thing as driving up some stairs in China in a Range Rover was put into perspective this week when Chinese car brand Chery tried the same thing with a Fulwin X3L SUV but failed and destroyed part of the legendary 999 steps to Heaven's gate in the process.