Yeah, not compared with the extra money being spent on compute directly. $200 gets you a fair amount of extra processing power, and that's if one LIDAR is even enough, with the solid state style currently around we need several.

Things like when to change lanes, do I need to yield for that ambulance, or what is that pedestrian going to do, are not really improved by point clouds.

I still want the massive point clouds for validation and ground truth, but not for driving.