Yes, resource availability isn’t the issue, and “just invest more” has some massive hurdles:

• China has over 25,000 patents in the field of rare earths
• China doesn’t have the strict environmental-protection regulations like much of the rest of the world. It keeps the price very low, but at great cost to its environment from toxic run-off and the like
• Complex, expensive solvent extraction processes require extensive experience that China is well ahead of the rest of the world on
• China has a highly integrated supply chain from mining to finished product manufacturing

All these mean any processing outside of China is going to be incredibly expensive and competitively unprofitable. It’s not impossible to do, and removing dependence from China is probably worth it, but it’s going to take a lot of capital and time to achieve and sustain.

The sustained dose from a class 1 lidar is well below critical safety levels. You’re no more likely to get cancer from car lidar than you are from regular use of household LED lights. But sure, let’s just add lidar to the long list of things that people will irrationally scaremonger about.

Yep, the DARPA Grand Challenge of 2004 spurred the modern self-driving car era. But attempts at self driving cars were made as early as the 70s - earlier, depending on how you define autonomous driving. And Waymo has had driveless cars on roads since 2017.