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Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

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Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#41

Post by serf »

mlajtos wrote: post #15
olliecornelia wrote: post #4

Wow, how fucking stupid. Does that mean that cars that already have ultrasonic sensors (and radar modules) will stop using that sensor data?

The reason why they decided to remove ultrasonics is that combining contradictory signals from cameras and ultrasonic is not straightforward. What should have the higher precedence? So they ultimately decided that cameras can do what ultrasonics can do, but even better. They won't remove ultrasonics from the delivered cars, but they will probably disable them in coming months.

>The reason why they decided to remove ultrasonics is that combining contradictory signals from cameras and ultrasonic is not straightforward.

It's fairly well known that nearly any kind of sensor fusion 'is not straightforward'. If that's a fact that was just recently discovered by Tesla -- causing a recent change in their lineup only now -- .... well, i'll just say that it speaks to Tesla's confidence being greater than their technological prowess.

I don't think that's the underlying issue here myself. I think this change is likely caused by an effort to get away from certain vendors and ship cars more rapidly.

>What should have the higher precedence?

again, this isn't a new problem and there are volumes of resources regarding that. It's a tough problem, but not new.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#42

Post by aeternum »

STRML wrote: post #22

There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering. If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren't at parity with the car that have it, although they "fixed" this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars. The parking sensors…

With the removal of radar, they showed some pretty convincing data that the radar was too noisy to be useful, especially with discriminating things like highway overpasses vs. stopped cars. They showed that vision could already outperform radar.

With these parking sensors it's different. They have no current alternative and it will cause a pretty significant loss of functionality. Disappointing move.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#43

Post by atonse »

I have had a model 3 for four years and the autopilot has steadily gotten worse.

In summer 2019 we went on a road trip that was 10 hours of total driving (each way), where I actually drove for maybe 30 mins total. It was flawless and downright magical.

Since then we often have the car slam brakes out of the blue (once waking up my sleeping family and causing both kids to cry), and a few other times.

I have lost trust with the autopilot system. It’s that simple. And I LOVE my model 3, the supercharger network, all else.

I don’t know what’s going on over there but I am not remotely convinced that they have their act together with vision-only based autonomous driving.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#44

Post by pstuart »

phire wrote: post #17
sxates wrote: post #12

Cars delivered today without USS will not have: "Park Assist: alerts you of surrounding objects when the vehicle is traveling This is the most basic feature that almost every car has had for years - but not your $60k Model Y. Why can't they wait to remove sensors until they've achieved feature parity with the vision only system? This seems crazy. I don't really understand the push to do everything through the cameras…

It's most likely a hardware availablity issue. They have run out of sensors, and they don't want to pause production until they have produced more.

Seems like the "upstanding" thing to do would be to ship without (and credit for the omission) and offer free retrofit once available.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#45

Post by hansonkd13 »

drcross wrote: post #32
STRML wrote: post #22

There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering. If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren't at parity with the car that have it, although they "fixed" this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars. The parking sensors…

When you have a several month wait list for your product, legions of devoted potential customers, if you're head and shoulders above any of your competitors, you're able to get away with things like this.

> if you're head and shoulders above any of your competitors, you're able to get away with things like this.

The hubris of Tesla is still believing this to be the case. I personally cancelled my cybertruck order from lack of interest. better competition exists in 2022 that wasn’t the case years ago.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#46

Post by dagmx »

joewadcan wrote: post #38
dagmx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have some overlap but not large enough to be reliable. My B pillar is regularly blinded due to their inefficient moisture sealing (called out in their manual instead of fixing it) and sunlight. It causes it to fail to see most things to our side

They are reliable enough to use for FSD: https://youtu.be/hx7BXih7zx8 so i think it's reliable enough for park assist, summon etc. Yeah you're def right about the moisture sealing... it's been hit or miss on production tolerances

> They are reliable enough to use for FSD

I disagree. regular navigate on autopilot and the FSD Beta are still very flakey outside of pristine conditions for me.

At this point, I either am expecting Tesla to go ahead with a camera upgrade with an expensive retrofit in the future, or FSD will never fully realize.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#47

Post by rootusrootus »

This does not make me optimistic for Tesla's future. Unless this is truly a temporary thing due to a supply shortage and they are planning to return to normal when they can.

Tesla's track record is poor. They cheaped out on a few dollars for an IR rain sensor like everyone else uses, and as a result the wipers on a Model 3 are psychotic. Combine that with their hatred for manual controls, and I had a terrible experience every winter when the rains really started.

Now they don't have radar, which everyone else does. AFAIK they still haven't got that reliable IR sensor. No CarPlay yet, which 99% of all other cars have. No 360 degree camera view. No ultrasonic parking sensors. Why again would I buy another Tesla? The competition has more features.

The cherry on top is Tesla's demonstrated willingness to screw over their customers well after the sale, and not even for the benefit of the company. Just because they hate their customers, I guess. That alone is a deal killer for me now.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#48

Post by peteradio »

STRML wrote: post #22

There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering. If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren't at parity with the car that have it, although they "fixed" this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars. The parking sensors…

High-end as defined by what besides price? Not necessarily snark, I haven't heard too much good about fit and finish...

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#50

Post by Kerbonut »

williamcotton wrote: post #23
mlajtos wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why they decided to remove ultrasonics is that combining contradictory signals from cameras and ultrasonic is not straightforward. What should have the higher precedence? So they ultimately decided that cameras can do what ultrasonics can do, but even better. They won't remove ultrasonics from the delivered cars, but they will probably disable them in coming months.

An autonomous vehicle is operating on a road network designed for humans with eyes. If we are aiming for the kind of “common sense” required for parity with a human driver it seems intuitive that the vehicle would have sensory inputs in common.

While I generally agree to get parity you would use common sensory input, I would hope the goal is to go beyond human level and navigate in for e.g. fog conditions or heavy rain, etc. things radar would help with. Ultrasonics probably don’t buy them much at this point as long as they have good object permanence. Think about parking in a garage. If you can map objects to special memory adequately then maybe ultrasonics aren’t necessary. However if the object is out of sight out of mind, you probably need the ultrasonics to help not hit it.
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