This changes a big portion of the game in autonomous vehicles. The scanning laser sensor is the weak link in ANY autonomous vehicle. Gimbaled lasers swing to and fro bouncing light off targets. The mechanism is very fine and easy to damage. Industrial automatic guided vehicles use scanning lasers for guidance and obstacle detection. They break, they wear out, they are hugely expensive. Solid state LIDAR is THE game-changer.
Remembering salesman, who had a training on the auto stop feature, it was raining and if failed, we crashed through the barricade, raindrops on the lens evidently, it is nice but do not depend on it.