I mean, you still need object detection and recognition with lidar, don't want to stamp on the brakes for a leaf.
And using only the primary sense of humans does kinda make sense.

still think it's tough call. Would be great if you don't need it. And don't know how expensive it would have been, especially at the start for all the people needing the hardware but not actually getting the use out of it.

otoh the only really successfull company in the space - waymo - uses it, that seems like a really strong sign