Elon Musk is lying about Tesla’s self-driving and I have the DMs to prove it
Over the last few days, Elon Musk has been making several statements claiming that autonomous driving systems that use lidar and radar sensors are more dangerous than Tesla’s camera-only computer vision approach because the system gets confused when interpreting data from different sensors.
It’s not only false, Musk told me directly that he agreed that radar and vision could be safer than just vision, right after he had Tesla remove the radars from its vehicles.
Tesla has taken a controversial approach, using only cameras as sensors for driving inputs in its self-driving technology. In contrast, most other companies use cameras in conjunction with radar and lidar sensors.
When Tesla first announced that all its cars produced onward have the hardware capable of “full self-driving” up to level 5 autonomous capacity in 2016, it included a front-facing radar in its self-driving hardware suite.
However, in 2021, after not having achieved anything more than a level 2 driver assist (ADAS) system with its self-driving effort, Elon Musk announced a move that he called “Tesla Vision”, which consists of moving Tesla’s self-driving effort only to use inputs from cameras.
Here’s what I wrote in 2021 about Musk sharing his plan for Tesla to only use cameras and neural nets:
CEO Elon Musk has been hyping the vision-only update as “mind-blowing.” He insists that it will lead to a true level 5 autonomous driving system by the end of the year, but he has gotten that timeline wrong before.
By May 2021, Tesla had begun removing the radar sensor from its lineup, starting with the Model 3 and Model Y, and later the Model S and Model X in 2022.
Tesla engineers reportedly attempted to convince Musk to retain the use of radar, but the CEO overruled them.
We are now in 2025, and unlike what Musk claimed, Tesla has yet to deliver on its self-driving promises, but the CEO is doubling down on his vision-only approach.
The controversial billionaire is making headlines this week for a series of new statements attacking Tesla’s self-driving rivals and their use of radar and lidar sensors.
Earlier this week, Musk took a jab at Waymo and claimed that “lidar and radar reduce safety”:
Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention. If lidars/radars disagree with cameras, which one wins? This sensor ambiguity causes increased, not decreased, risk. That’s why Waymos can’t drive on highways.We turned off radars in Teslas to increase safety. Cameras ftw.
The assertion that “Waymos can’t drive on highways” is simply false. Waymo has been conducting fully driverless employee testing on freeways in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles for years, and it is expected to make this technology available to rider-only rides soon.
Tesla is in a similar situation with its Robotaxi: they don’t drive on freeways without an employee supervisor.
Musk later added:
LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation. As I have said many times, there is a role for LiDAR in some circumstances and I personally oversaw the development of LiDAR for the SpaceX Dragon docking with Space Station. I am well aware of its strengths and weaknesses.
It’s not true that Waymos can’t work in “any heavy precipitation.”
Here’s a video of a Waymo vehicle driving by itself in heavy rain:
In comparison, Tesla’s own Robotaxi terms of service mention that it “may be limited or unavailable in inclement weather.”
Last month, Tesla Robotaxi riders had their rides cut short, and they were told it was due to the rain.
There’s plenty of evidence that Musk is wrong and misleading with these statements, but furthermore, he himself admitted that radar sensors can make Tesla’s vision system safer.
‘Vision with high-res radar would be better than pure vision’
In May 2021, as Tesla began removing radar sensors from its vehicle lineup and transitioning to a vision-only approach, I was direct messaging (DMing) Musk to learn more about the surprising move.
In the conversation, he was already making the claim that sensor contention is lowering safety as he did this week in new comments attacking Waymo.
He wrote at the time:
The probability of safety will be higher with pure vision than vision+radar, not lower. Vision has become so good that radar actually reduces signal/noise.
However, what was more interesting is what he said shortly after claiming that:
Musk admitted that “vision with high-resolution radar would be better than pure vision”. However, he claimed that such a radar didn’t exist.
In the same conversation, I pointed Musk to existing high-definition millimeter wave radars, but he didn’t respond.
It was still early for that technology in 2021, but high-definition millimeter wave radars are now commonly used by companies developing autonomous driving technologies, including Waymo.
Waymo uses six high-definition radars in its system:
In short, Musk was already concerned about sensor contention in 2021, but he admitted that the problem would be worth solving with higher-definition radars, which already existed then and are becoming more common now.
Yet, he criticizes companies using radar and lidar, which work similarly to high-resolution radars but on different wavelengths, for even attempting sensor fusion.
It’s not impossible because Tesla can’t do it
Part of the problem here appears to be that Musk thinks something doesn’t work because Tesla can’t make it work, and he doesn’t want to admit that others are solving the sensor fusion problem.
Tesla simply couldn’t solve sensor fusion, so it focused on achieving autonomy solely through camera vision. However, those who continued to work on the issue have made significant progress and are now reaping the rewards.
Waymo and Baidu, both of which have level 4 autonomous driving systems currently commercially operating without supervision, unlike Tesla, have heavily invested in sensor fusion.
Amir Husain, an AI entrepreneur who sits on the Boards of Advisors for IBM Watson and the Department of Computer Science at UT Austin, points to advancements in the use of Kalman filters and Bayesian techniques to solve sensor noise covariance.
He commented on Musk’s statement regarding the use of radar and lidar sensors:
The issue isn’t a binary disagreement between two sensors. It generates a better estimate than any individual sensor can produce on its own. They all have a margin of error. Fusion helps reduce this.
If Musk’s argument held, why would the human brain use eyes, ears, and touch to estimate object location? Why would aircraft combine radar, IRST, and other passive sensors to estimate object location? This is a fundamental misunderstanding of information theory. Every channel has noise. But redundancy reduces uncertainty.
Musk’s main argument to focus on cameras and neural nets has been that the roads are designed for humans to drive and humans drive using their eyes and brain, which are the hardware and software equivalent of cameras (eyes) and neural nets (brain).
Now, most other companies developing autonomous driving technologies are also focusing on this, but to surpass humans and achieve greater levels of safety through precision and redundancy, they are also adding radar and lidar sensors to their systems.
Electrek’s Take
Musk painted Tesla into a corner with its vision-only approach, and now he is trying to mislead people into thinking that it is the only one that can work, when there’s no substantial evidence to support this claim.
Now, let me be clear, Musk is partly correct. When poorly fused, multi-sensor data introduces noise, making it more challenging to operate an autonomous driving system.
However, who said that this is an unsolvable problem? Others appear to be solving it, and we are seeing the results in Waymo’s and Baidu’s commercially available rider-only taxi services.
If you can take advantage of radar’s ability to detect distance and speed as well as work through rain, fog, dust, and snow, why wouldn’t you use it?
As he admitted in the DMs with me in 2021, Musk is aware of this – hence why he acknowledged that high-resolution radar combined with vision would be safer than vision alone.
The problem is that Tesla hasn’t focused on improving sensor fusion and radar integration in the last 4 years because it has been all-in on vision.
Now, Tesla could potentially still solve self-driving with its vision system, but there’s no evidence that it is close to happening or any safer than other systems, such as Waymo’s, which use radar and lidar sensors.
In fact, Tesla is still only operating an autonomous driving system under the supervision of in-car employees with a few dozen cars, while Waymo has been doing rider-only rides for years and operates over 1,500 autonomous vehicles in the US.
Just like with his “Robotaxi” with supervisors, Musk is trying to create the illusion that Tesla is not only leading in autonomy, but it is the only one that can solve it.
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Lotus Cars’ compelling, high-performance electric sports sedan and SUV received a number of fresh updates earlier this week, but packs superior infotainment tech, styling tweaks, and (of course) a mind-bending 905 electric horsepower. (!)
I haven’t checked the numbers, but I’d bet a dollar or three that Tesla moves more cars in a good week than Lotus sells in a year. Still, Lotus has managed to preserve its reputation as a maker of truly engaging drivers’ cars. Its latest EVs, the Emeya sedan and Eletre SUV, are generally regarded as dynamic, exhilarating machines that credibly carry Colin Chapman’s yellow badge.
For 2026, though, the Chinese versions of the updated Lotus EVs have black badges (the UK versions were announced back in April), but the new doesn’t stop there.
The next update on the list is the addition of 22″, 10-spoke ultralight alloy wheels across the entire Eletre lineup. Both the 600 and 600 SE variants retain last year’s 6-piston fixed front and floating rear brake calipers, while the top-tier 900 model gets a high-performance, 10-piston, carbon-ceramic braking system that’s more than capable of hauling the Eletre SUV down from speed, lap after lap.
They’ll need those brakes, too – because these things are fast, and getting faster with seemingly every new software update. “Things can always go faster,” reads the official Lotus copy. “The new Eletre and Emeya ‘900’ provide unmistakable evidence, representing superlatives in terms of performance. Both rely on a 675 kW (~915 hp) strong dual-motor powertrain.”
Both Lotus 900s can put that power to the ground effectively enough to rocket from 0-62 mph (100 km) in a well under 3.0 seconds on their way to an electronically-limited top speed of 155 mph (256 km/h) in the Eletre, and 160 mph (265 km/h) in the Emeya. The 600s aren’t exactly slow, either, packing 405 kW electric motors (~600 hp) good for 0-60 times in the mid 4s.
Inside, the Eletre and Emeya designs carries over without major changes. Lotus enhanced the features list on various trims. The 600 models now include 12-way power-adjustable front seats with heating and ventilation, as well as 15-speaker audio systems from KEF. The 600 SE further adds a PDLC smart panoramic sunroof, 20-way power-adjustable front seats, front seat massage function, and active rear-wheel steering.
CarNewsChina reports that the updated 900 model builds upon the 600 SE’s new offerings with an intelligent, active anti-roll control suspension system.
Pricing for the 2026 Lotus EVs starts at 538,000 yuan (74,800 USD) in China, and climbs to over 838,000 yuan (116,500 USD) for the top-shelf Lotus Eletre 900 SUV. All models carry the same two-speed transmission and 112 kWh battery (102 kWh in the UK), good for up to 610 km (~375 miles) of driving between charges.
No word yet on if or when these updates will make it to America.
Electrek’s Take
It wasn’t that long ago that a 900+ hp car was a cammy, rough-riding mess of a machine that you could barely take through a drive thru, but could probably land on the cover of a car magazine. Today, that same 900 hp in a quiet, smooth, reliable EV hardly generates a headline. And, almost in defiance of the “everything just keeps getting more expensive” truism, these mind-bending supercars can be had for less than what cars like this used to cost with gas engines and a third of the power.
How far we’ve come!
SOURCE | IMAGES: Lotus Cars, via CarNewsChina.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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The welding equipment experts at Lincoln Electric know a thing or two about high-voltage equipment. Now, they’re bringing that electrical expertise to a whole new market with a portable, self-contained, 50 kW DC fast charger designed to deliver a quick shot of range and get stranded drivers back on the road.
Lincoln Electric’s Velion 50 kW DC fast charger is pitched as a durable, compact mobile charging unit that’s perfect for tow truck operators and construction fleets dealing with vehicles and fleet assets that couldn’t quite make their way back to a charger. So, you’re looking at this and thinking of one of those red, 5-gallon gas tanks that helps get drivers off the highway and to the next exit, congratulations: you get it!
“[Velion is] Designed for flexible, mobile use,” said Bruce Chantry, Vice President, Electric Vehicle Solutions at Lincoln Electric, during a buzzword-packed introduction of the new machine. “Designed in collaboration with the market and leveraging decades of expertise in power electronics, our solution is engineered to provide the flexibility customers need today, with a future-ready design to meet the demands of tomorrow.”
Designed, engineered, and assembled in the United States with over 70% domestic content, the Velion charger meets all National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) and Build America, Buy America (BABA) requirements.
Lincoln Electric plans to sell the Velion DCFC to municipal fleets and state highway agencies, first, and envisions it being deployed in tough environments like construction sites, emergency response arenas, and complex fixed fleet depots. Car dealerships, museums, and probably ambulances too, could benefit – but I’m sure that’s just scratching the surface.
Watch the Lincoln Electric launch video for the Velion from earlier this summer, below, then let us know how you’d like to see a mobile fast charger get deployed in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Lincoln Electric Velion DCFC
The company hasn’t announced pricing or battery energy capacity (in kWh) for the new Velion, but I’d guess it’s something higher than 15 kWh, but less than 20. If you guys have a better guess, I’d love to hear it!
SOURCE | IMAGES: Lincoln Electric.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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![How CATL is changing EV battery tech in Europe [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/09/CATL-12.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Electric vehicles have come a long way, but let’s be real—they still have their hangups: “range anxiety,” long charging times, and questions about safety and sustainability. But what if all those worries could be put to rest?
At IAA Mobility in Munich, CATL, one of the world’s biggest battery makers, unveiled a new technology that could revolutionize EVs.
Shenxing Pro: Go Far, Last Long
CATL debuted two versions of its next-gen Shenxing Pro battery. One is all about distance and durability. Picture this: a single charge gets you up to 758 km (or about 470 miles). That’s enough to drive from Houston to Memphis without a single stop. And it’s not just about the distance; this thing is built to last. It promises a lifespan of 12 years or 1,000,000 km, with only around 9% degradation after 200,000 km. That’s a huge leap from today’s EV batteries, which often lose up to 30% of their capacity over the same period.
Fast Charging, Even When It’s Freezing
Tired of waiting around for your car to charge? The second version of the Shenxing Pro is for you. It’s the Super Fast Charging model, designed to get you back on the road in minutes. CATL says it can add a whopping 478 km of range in just 10 minutes under perfect conditions. And here’s the best part: it holds its own in the cold. We all know how much cold weather messes with most EV batteries, but the Shenxing Pro still delivers up to 410 km of range in just 20 minutes at a chilling -20°C. That’s better than many EVs perform in normal temperatures!
No Propagation 3.0: Safety First
Safety is a top concern with EV batteries, especially the risk of thermal runaway—that’s when one cell overheats and triggers a dangerous chain reaction. CATL’s new No Propagation 3.0 platform is engineered to stop that domino effect cold. It uses special fireproof coatings and a cell structure that quickly cools down and relieves pressure. In the rare event of a problem, the battery can still provide stable power for over an hour. That extra time is a lifeline, giving drivers the chance to get to safety and ensuring critical systems like advanced driver-assistance features stay online when you need them most.
Getting Greener, At Scale
CATL is also tackling the sustainability issue head-on. Through a new initiative called the Global Energy Circular Commitment (GECC), they aim to cut the use of new raw materials by half over the next two decades. They’re already a leader in this space, operating the world’s largest battery recycling network. Since 2024, they’ve recycled over 130,000 tons of used batteries, recovering 99.6% of crucial metals like nickel, cobalt, and manganese.
The Whole Package
What’s so impressive about the Shenxing Pro isn’t just one feature—it’s everything working together. By improving range, charging speed, safety, and sustainability all at once, CATL isn’t just fixing a single problem; they’re taking on the biggest obstacles to widespread EV adoption. If these batteries live up to the hype, the next wave of EVs could be more efficient, more reliable, and a whole lot greener.
The bottom line? CATL’s latest battery tech in tandem with other commitments could prove to be the building blocks for the next wave of EVs in Europe and beyond.
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