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Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

reuters.com

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Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#51

Post by harles »

nradov wrote: post #28
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NHTSA tested Tesla cars that had radar modules. Tesla has decided to remove the radar modules and use only vision systems. The new vision-only models are not NHTSA certified yet, so the NHTSA had to clarify that the safety certification only applies to vehicles shipped before the vision-only transition. That is, any vehicle with radar is still certified, but the new vehicles will apparently ship untested.

And it is possible to meet NHTSA certification requirements for recommended safety technology with vision-only systems. Subaru has done that for years.

Doesn’t Subaru use stereo vision though? Having depth cues and not having them seems like a pretty big distinction, and Tesla just removed their only source of depth.

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#52

Post by ffggvv »

TameAntelope wrote: post #3

I'm having trouble figuring out if this is just another battle in Elon's War with Regulators, if this is NHTSA being too slow to keep up with evolving technology, or if Teslas without radar are actually worse, deserving the loss of these designations. Or what the mix is of all three of those things, I guess.

they removed radar because of the chip shortage and now even more people will die from auto kill.

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#53

Post by rjsamson »

chronic83027 wrote: post #32
bpodgursky wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has been pushing camera-only autonomous driving (ditching LIDAR) since well before the chip shortage. I would assume this is part of the same drive.

As of May 2021, Tesla publicly announced they’re using lidar to develop FSD. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/24/22451404/tesla-luminar-li...

They haven’t announced anything like that - they’re just using LiDAR rigs to validate data from their vision based approach, particularly distance. It actually even mentions something about it at the bottom of the article you referenced.

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#54

Post by Forbo »

nradov wrote: post #28
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NHTSA tested Tesla cars that had radar modules. Tesla has decided to remove the radar modules and use only vision systems. The new vision-only models are not NHTSA certified yet, so the NHTSA had to clarify that the safety certification only applies to vehicles shipped before the vision-only transition. That is, any vehicle with radar is still certified, but the new vehicles will apparently ship untested.

And it is possible to meet NHTSA certification requirements for recommended safety technology with vision-only systems. Subaru has done that for years.

They won't know that it meets the requirements until it has been tested, so putting this clarification out in the meantime covers the gap until vision-only testing has completed.

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#55

Post by Lendal »

The irritating thing is it's all so unnecessary. My Tesla is a great car. But I paid an extra $10,000 for a feature that was promised but still hasn't been fully delivered, FSD. It feels like I paid extra for my awesome car to be sabotaged. What was promised by FSD was never going to be possible, and yet they are doubling down. They need to stop this idiocy. The vision system is horrible. The car stops at green lights. It swerves around phantoms at speed. It fails to brake when it ought to, and brakes way too late after it should have decelerated. When it encounters a car parked on the side of the road it stops instead of going around.

Okay I'm glad we get over-the-air updates, but it just makes me sad that the updates improve things so slowly in a two steps forward one step back sort of way. I thought it would be further along by now.

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#56

Post by t0mas88 »

treeman79 wrote: post #44
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NHTSA tested Tesla cars that had radar modules. Tesla has decided to remove the radar modules and use only vision systems. The new vision-only models are not NHTSA certified yet, so the NHTSA had to clarify that the safety certification only applies to vehicles shipped before the vision-only transition. That is, any vehicle with radar is still certified, but the new vehicles will apparently ship untested.

I’m usually one to not like over regulation. Radar / no radar is a pretty drastic change though.

I wouldn't even consider this regulation. This is organisation A asking org B to review their product and put a sticker on it that it passed the tests. Then org A decides to make a different product, so org B clarifies that the new product is not the one they tested and certified.

This would still go the same way if org B wasn't a government org.

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#57

Post by [deleted] »

TameAntelope wrote: post #3

I'm having trouble figuring out if this is just another battle in Elon's War with Regulators, if this is NHTSA being too slow to keep up with evolving technology, or if Teslas without radar are actually worse, deserving the loss of these designations. Or what the mix is of all three of those things, I guess.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#58

Post by gauravphoenix »

>removing radar sensors to transition to a camera-based Autopilot system

A few weeks back, I had a terrible experience while using auto pilot. I was driving on a highway (in CA) with autopilot engaged. For the most part, there was a concrete median on the highway. Suddenly, a section came with no concrete median and a new left only turn lane gets added. For whatever reasons, autopilot thought it is a great idea to suddenly move the steering wheel to left while there is oncoming traffic. I immediately took control of the navigation but the car did wobble a bit. My heart kept racing with an adrenaline rush for the next half an hour. I haven't engaged autopilot since then. I can't trust auto pilot anymore- it couldn't deal with a dead-simple scenario of a clearly marked lane getting added.

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#59

Post by mdorazio »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #25
akerl_ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the actual change is driven by supply chain issues w/ radar gear, and the vision-is-better party line is just to make it sell better.

Can someone tell me if SpaceX's tail-landing rockets are vision-only systems? Street vehicle navigation seems at least as difficult as nailing a rocket landing.

They are not. Cameras would not be all that useful. See [1] for an estimated system diagram - the main sensor stacks are based on AHRS and GPS.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/64ew8x/falcon_9_a_s...

Re: Tesla loses U.S. designation for some advanced safety features

#60

Post by _ph_ »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #29
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read is it's just the NHTSA not granting a certification for things it hasn't tested. Ie, "forward collision warning, lane departure warning, crash imminent braking and dynamic brake support" without radar. Tesla will release the new versions (if they haven't already), the NHTSA will test the new models, and they'll grant the "check marks" again. In other words, it's non-news (unless you happen to be planning to b…

Bear in mind, there are safety features actually being dropped for this change: https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision "Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance may be disabled at delivery"

At delivery. Sounds like a software update waiting. Lane depature would be a pure vision based thing anyway, as radar can't detect lane markings.
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