Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by eclipxe » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:46 AM UTC

googlryas wrote: post #58

fckgw wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are absolutely not streaming the data to Tesla in real-time. They are storing some data on-board to retrieve later which makes it convenient for them to deflect blame in crashes.

Yeah - there's an interior, driving-facing camera(at least in the model Y), which I suspect has no real purpose other than to send video after a crash to Tesla, so they can say "look, the driver wasn't staring at the road, not our fault autopilot crashed them". I would cover it up, but I'm afraid that it will look incriminating if I ever am in an accident as to why I did it.

The camera ensures you are paying attention with using Autopilot or FSD. For example if you pick up your phone, it will alert you to pay attention and eventually shut off.

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

#112

Post by pclmulqdq » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:47 AM UTC

petilon wrote: post #84

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…

> 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. Not true. Elon Musk has long maintained that cameras/vision is all that is needed [1]. After all, that's all a human has. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/anyone-relying-on-lidar-is...

Your eyes are an incredible set of cameras. They have huge dynamic range, extremely accurate and fast depth sensing capabilities, huge focal distance range, and mounts that move incredibly quickly and precisely to point at details.

There are a lot of good reasons why you shouldn't think that today's cameras are equivalent to human eyes. There are a lot of good reasons to believe that cameras will never be equivalent to human eyes.

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

#113

Post by 1123581321 » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:48 AM UTC

virgildotcodes wrote: post #34

JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #3

“In the near future, once these features achieve performance parity to today’s vehicles” Right... like how vision vehicles have parity with autopilot speeds and following distance? Oh wait they don't. Vision-only vehicles are still limited to a max of 85mph and 2 car minimum following distance for autosteer while radar is 90mph and 1 car following distance. Texas has 85mph highways. The two car following distance con…

I thought I remembered being taught in driver's ed that you should leave a 1 car gap for every 10mph of speed. 1-2 cars at 85mph is clearly not enough distance to stop.

That is similar to what car length adaptive cruise control does. In heavy, fast traffic, you won’t get your 7-9 car length though, due to frequent cutting in and weaving around you.

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

#114

Post by phinnaeus » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

petilon wrote: post #84

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…

> 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. Not true. Elon Musk has long maintained that cameras/vision is all that is needed [1]. After all, that's all a human has. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/anyone-relying-on-lidar-is...

I love the "humans do it with only two cameras!" comment. It's so funny to see people disregard the human brain, as if any computer today can hold a candle the the visual processing prowess it contains.

I say this as a happy Model 3 owner: Elon is remarkably stupid (or perhaps outright disingenuous) sometimes.

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

#115

Post by tablespoon » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:50 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #107

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…

It looks like they are transparently trying to raise their margins. I guess they are more supply-constrained than they thought. The "smart car of the future" from Tesla now has no sensors other than cameras, and not very many of those.

> It looks like they are transparently trying to raise their margins. I guess they are more supply-constrained than they thought. The "smart car of the future" from Tesla now has no sensors other than cameras, and not very many of those.

Don't worry, it won't be a problem as long as they can keep the marketing budget up.

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

#116

Post by Xorlev » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #96

Qworg wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see the convincing data RE: radar - they're using the same radars as every other car that has emergency braking from the car in front of the car that's in front of you. I've not heard of many "phantom braking" sessions from these other vehicles - I may have missed something.

They were using the radar for lane guidance. That's why they had to have a whitelist of locations where the radar was false triggered by the roadside environment. It never actually worked properly and they just papered it over with a hack to temporarily blind their input.

How does radar for lane guidance work exactly?

I'm pretty sure all of the phantom braking events due to underpasses were vision related, given that radar is essentially blind to the road.

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

#117

Post by petilon » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:56 AM UTC

kadoban wrote: post #108

petilon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree. I think all self-driving cars should be required to have LiDARs. I was just reporting what Musk said: "Elon Musk reportedly demanded cameras over radar in self-driving cars because human eyes don't rely on radar" [1]. Are the down-votes intended for Musk? [1] https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/elon-musk-reportedl...

Your wording, especially the "Not true" puts it in your own voice. Not to mention, just repeating Musk's statement in the context you did (as a response to someone explicitly disagreeing already) implies that you agree with it.

It is not true that the decision is not driven by engineering; we know that because Musk has been anti-LiDAR and anti-radar from the beginning.

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

#118

Post by pclmulqdq » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:59 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #83

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.

This sounds like a problem well suited for ML, which is basically the thing most of us expect Tesla to be best at. Just throw sensor data at cases and let the situations in which certain values should get precedence manifest in the weights and biases.

I expect Waymo to be the best at it. Waymo has a bunch of sensors on their cars to provide accurate information, because they know that cameras aren't always reliable. Tesla may not be right here.

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

#119

Post by ericd » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 4:06 AM UTC

davewritescode wrote: post #104

pclmulqdq wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who have never driven a car worth more than $50,000 love the luxury feel of their Teslas. It's been really interesting to see how many people had a Tesla as their first expensive car.

As a person who’s owned some luxury cars in their life, going from a BMW to a Model3 feels like a really big downgrade in so many ways. I can give a list of reasons why I didn’t buy an M3P at the time but quality, lack of repair options and really shitty interior topped the list. Not having carplay/android auto or satellite radio were minor but still annoying in a car that cost so much money.

We've had the complete opposite experience with our BMW->Tesla move. Sure, the BMW had a very nice interior, that complaint gets a tons of play online, and it's not inaccurate. But you know what just blows that away? Getting into a car on a 100 degree day, and instead of scorching my skin on the leather, like I would with our old BMW, the seat is cold because I tapped a button on my phone 5 minutes before when we were about to head out. That is real luxury, and I appreciate it so much every single time. I stopped noticing the interior of the cars maybe two weeks after I bought each. Maybe that's just me.

And the thing is just automatically at a completely perfect temperature when we get into it in the morning. The automatic seat warmers that work in concert with climate control are a newish software feature, but wonderful.

Recently, one of our tires developed a bubble in the sidewall due to a curb impact, Tesla sent out a truck and they changed the tire inside our garage a couple hours after we noticed it and told them about it in the app. Not needing to interrupt my day to deal with the issue was a real luxury.

Music that picks up right where you left off when you come back.

A really efficient heat pump that makes it almost guilt free to just sit in the car and leave the AC running. All the things it enables, like camping mode! AC temperature keep mode!

Voice commands that actually work well.

A unified interface that controls everything about the car, and allows the voice commands to do everything from temperature changes to music searches to activating child window locks because our toddler needs to stop rolling down the windows and I can't take my eyes off the road to hunt for a setting (the voice commands obviated my biggest worry, the loss of physical controls).

There are just so many nice little touches that just work, and add up to make the experience much better than a BMW with carplay. I miss the exhaust note, the hardtop, the nice leather, fit and finish, but I would still choose the Tesla 10/10 times. And that would be the case against any legacy carmaker vehicle, except to go the complete opposite direction with full physical controls, basic radio, and no infotainment system at all. The legacy carmakers are still quite good at bolting together the mechanical components.

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

#120

Post by kristo » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 4:11 AM UTC

hansonkd13 wrote: post #45

drcross wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fact that you wanted one of those ped killing tanks is unbelievable to me