LIDAR typically uses lasers in the so-called eye-safe range (around 1.4 micro meters). This range is precisely around the absorption peak of water so that LIDAR cannot damage the eyes of pedestrians and other by-standers. By construction, LIDAR sucks in the fog, rain, snow, etc.

But it has no problems with night. So it has some great uses.

I guess that being a brilliant hacker doesn't necessarily make you an engineer.

The thing is that you evaluate "big" and "obvious" with the sensors that you have. They obviously werent obstacles for the algo that was driving.

there are systems with LIDARs mounted next to the headlights.

All miles are not created equals though. Sure Tesla will gather a lot of data quickly but most of this data will be from people who use their car for their daily commute, everyday at roughly the same hour. This doesn't have the same value as data from different areas/road conditions/time of day

The USA is a big country with a lot of variety though. Different timezones, climates, terrain. It does provide some coverage I would think.

And they do drive Teslas outside the US as well.

And should there be places, terrains, urban conditions etc. that Tesla doesn't cover, they will see it and can hire a number of chauffeurs to drive around there. Even if they hired 1,000 drivers to gather data in certain geographical areas at certain hours or weather conditions that they lacked input from it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the cost other car manufacturers face to keep up with Tesla now.

You can't just install autonomous driving systems in any combustion engine car without changing lots of systems. Tesla is electric fist. Everything is already wired, ready to be measured and in feedback loops.

There was a good Freakonomics podcast (http://bit.ly/2dQNPBh) a couple of years ago which looked at why Norway has so many Teslas. Road conditions would be pretty different to California.

Sure. I am mostly wondering about the demographics of Tesla owners. My guess would be that people who own Tesla cars tend to live in similar areas, with comparable lifestyle. There is also the case of driving style. I doubt there are people that tend to drive like my grandmother, and I would assume that a variety of driving style is important as well.

All I'm saying is that the claim of N million miles should be taken with a grain of salt as long as you do not know the entropy that these miles contain.

Some cars get used on the weekend too.