depth estimation is but one part of the problem— atmospheric and other conditions which blind optical visible spectrum sensors, lack of ambient (sunlight) and more. lidar simply outperforms (performs at all?) in these conditions. and provides hardware back distance maps, not software calculated estimation
Lidar fails worse than cameras in nearly all those conditions. There are plenty of videos of Tesla's vision-only approach seeing obstacles far before a human possibly could in all those conditions on real customer cars. Many are on the old hardware with far worse cameras
There's a misconception that what people see and what the camera sees is similar. Not true at all. One day when it's raining or foggy, have some record the driving, through the windshield. You'll be very surprised. Even what the camera displays on the screen isn't what it's actually "seeing".
