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Online fury at Tesla VP Elluswamy’s 'need AI, not sensors' claim
Netizens contrasted Tesla's self-driving vehicles against competitors like Waymo, which uses LIDAR and already operates commercial driverless services in multiple US cities.
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Thu, 05, Feb 2026
- 04:23 EST
- 26
Ashok Elluswamy / Matroid via YouTube
Tesla's Vice President of AI and Software, Ashok Elluswamy, is facing significant online backlash after he talked about cameras being an 'obvious' solution to Tesla's long standing woes with self-driving cars.
Elluswamy courted controversy while speaking at the 2026 ScaledML Conference on Jan. 29. The Tesla top tech executive, who was recently hailed by Tesla founder Elon Musk as the cornerstone of the company's autopilot software, dismissed the need for additional sensors like LIDAR in Tesla cars and claimed that the cars need better interpretation of data using more advanced AI, and not more data.
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He said, "The self-driving problem is not a sensor problem, it's an AI problem."
Elluswamy added, "The cameras have enough information already. It's a problem of extracting the information, which is an AI problem."
He further explained that Tesla’s autonomous driving system depends mainly on camera inputs processed through powerful neural networks, rather than relying on a suite of specialized sensors.
According to Elluswamy, the company employs an end-to-end AI approach that takes raw video footage, vehicle motion data, and navigation information as direct inputs and outputs precise driving commands, including steering, acceleration, and braking.
Netizens were quick to poke holes in Elluswamy's claims. Netizens pointed out that Tesla is currently under scrutiny from U.S. federal agencies for its self-driving projects. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that it is investigating 58 reported incidents involving Tesla vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving (FSD), where the systems allegedly violated traffic laws—such as running red lights and traveling on the wrong side of the road. These incidents reportedly resulted in more than a dozen crashes, several vehicle fires, and close to two dozen injuries.
Netizens also contrasted Tesla's self-driving vehicles against competitors like Waymo, which uses LIDAR and already operates commercial driverless services in multiple US cities.
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