What is lidar?

How it works

A lidar unit sends out pulses of laser light and records what bounces back. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) describes it as a remote sensing method. A sensor records the reflected light to measure a range, NOAA says, writing about airborne survey lidar. Combining many ranges with position data produces a "point cloud," a dense group of points that each have three-dimensional coordinates. NOAA says a survey instrument consists mainly of a laser, a scanner and a specialized GPS receiver. It says airplanes and helicopters are the most common platforms for collecting lidar data over broad areas.

Why it matters for self-driving cars

Autonomous vehicle developers have long used lidar because it gives a detailed view of a car's immediate surroundings, TechCrunch reported. Waymo, a robotaxi operator, said in February 2026 its sixth-generation system combines cameras, imaging radar and lidar. The company says lidar, unlike a camera, supplies its own light, and that its short-range lidars back up the cameras and attach accurate distance measurements to camera images. These are Waymo's descriptions of its own hardware.

Not every developer agrees the sensor is necessary. Tesla has built its driving system without radar or lidar, TechCrunch reported. On a July 2026 call about second-quarter results, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's vice president of AI, said the company's robotaxis show safe autonomy is possible with cameras alone. That is Tesla's assessment of its own system.

Where things stand in 2026

TechCrunch's August 2026 report said lidar has historically cost much more than radar or cameras. It said a sensor priced as high as $75,000 a decade ago can now sell for a few hundred dollars in some cases. That came after Chinese suppliers Hesai and RoboSense scaled up and cut prices, it said. Waymo says its newest lidar draws on industry cost reductions over the past five years.

Cheaper Chinese hardware has prompted a security debate in the United States. TechCrunch reported that Idaho National Laboratory, a Department of Energy lab, is reviewing whether Chinese-made lidar could pose a security risk if widely used on U.S. vehicles. It cited two people familiar with the effort. The lab declined to comment on the review. Lawmakers were drafting several bills amid pressure to ban Chinese lidar on American roads. As of that August 21 report, U.S. companies were still allowed to use the sensors.