Obviously you don’t know what a ‘quote’ is. Carlin never said such a thing. I don’t need to look it up to know he never said that, because Carlin was perhaps the best comedy writer of all time, and your ‘quote’ seems like it’s engineered to be unfunny.
That’s not really the case, as Elon’s already admitted that there are at least about a half a million Teslas with old HW3 self driving computers that need to have them upgraded to HW4 for them to have the chance at eventually get the FSD the buyers were promised. That’s not even mentioning the upgraded cameras the HW4 vehicles have gotten. The reason for Musk not wanting lidar on Teslas is very simple: cost. He thinks it’s too expensive and unnecessary, unlike every single other manufacturer working on the same problem.
Do you have an example of another serious company working on the problem that also has concluded that lidar is unnecessary? Because I don’t.
I’m not an expert, but as I understand it, the consensus (excluding Musk of course) seems to be that lidar is necessary for proper functioning and safety in poor visibility situations, like in rain, fog or general darkness. I think the odds are good that the judgment of an overwhelming majority of companies is more correct than the judgment of Musk alone. Particularly considering Musk’s proven track record of cost cutting that puts users’ lives in danger, for example not being able to manually open the doors of burning Teslas.