A Tesla car was spotted in Florida with a roof rack full of lidar sensors, raising questions about whether Elon Musk has changed his mind about the technology — and temporarily boosting the shares of the devices' manufacturer.

Lidar sensors are devices that detect the proximity of nearby objects using lasers. They are widely used in autonomous vehicles, offering more precise object detection than cameras or radar.

But to date, Musk, CEO of Palo Alto-based Tesla, has been a vocal naysayer on the technology, calling it a "fool's errand" at a company event in 2019. Instead, Tesla's own self-driving car system depends largely on cameras, which are generally less expensive but also can be less dependable and less precise.

"Anyone relying on lidar is doomed,” he said at the event.

That's what made the photos of the car — a Model Y — a surprise. As seen in a photo posted on Twitter Thursday, the car was decked out with lidar sensors from Luminar Technologies Inc.

It turns out that Tesla (Nasdaq:TSLA) has a contract with Luminar to use its devices for testing and development, according to Bloomberg.

The California manufacturer’s license plate on the photographed vehicle belongs to Tesla, but it's not clear, exactly, what the company is doing, Bloomberg said. It could be comparing the performance of its self-driving system when relying on lidar sensors versus using cameras, Bloomberg said. It could also be testing the lidar devices for future use, according to the report.

Regardless, the photo got investors excited about Luminar, which is based in Palo Alto and Florida. Its stock (Nasdaq:LAZR) rose more than 10% Thursday to close at $23.16.

The excitement quickly faded, however. Its shares have since given up most of their gains, opening Tuesday at $21.20 .

The photo maybe shouldn't have been such a shock. Musk has given indications he's softened his views on lidar — or was maybe exaggerating his opposition to it in the first place. In a chat on the Clubhouse service earlier this year, he said he had been “talking smack” about lidar and admitted that his rocket company, SpaceX, has developed a lidar system for its Dragon capsules.

"Obviously if I hated lidar I wouldn’t have done that," Musk said in the Clubhouse chat. "However, for driving on real world roads you have to solve vision, understanding objects."

Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst with Guidehouse Insights, however, is skeptical that Musk will switch gears and start putting lidar sensors on his cars.

“The more likely scenario is they are using the Luminar lidars to validate their camera-based FSD (full self-driving) system,” Abuelsamid told Bloomberg. “If they made that change, it would effectively deprecate their entire fleet of vehicles. They are not going to retrofit one million vehicles.”

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