> Lidar won't help it intelligently handle a merge of two lanes into one, or seeing a turn signal and slowing down to let the person in, or seeing a red light and knowing to start slowing down before it recognizes the car in front of it slowing down, ....

It certainly seems like it's still needed. Some of the high profile Tesla crashes seem to be caused by the camera system not properly recognizing the side/back of a truck or the divider on an off ramp and plowing right into them where lidar probably would have.