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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

#241

Post by simondotau »

woeh wrote: post #37
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.

The decision about what sensor to use is more easily made when one of the sensors provides no data, or clearly disturbed data. Like in case of fog, mud on a camera, pouring rain, etc. My phone often signals me that I have to clean the lenses of my camera, so I'm sure it's possible to detect unreliable sensors. Sure, you have to decide on all sorts of tipping points, and in the end that is probably expensive to develo…

If fog or rain is so intense that objects within a few feet of your car are obscured from vision, I'd suggest that maybe you shouldn't be operating the car at all, regardless of any assistance technologies it might possess.

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

#242

Post by rob74 »

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…

> The parking sensors on the Tesla are really good and very useful. They show a rough outline of what is around you and are displayed very nicely compared to some other cars. It is a real shame to remove this, and downright dishonest to characterize it as some kind of leap forward.

My 4 year old Ford Focus doesn't show an outline of obstacles around the car, but still provides Park Assist and Autopark. Especially Park Assist is something that everyone expects from every reasonably equipped car nowadays. So yeah, maybe understandable if it's due to supply difficulties, but still a bad move...

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

#243

Post by rob74 »

rrss wrote: post #233
aeternum wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They showed that vision could already outperform radar. important to note that much like there is a wide range from bad cameras (“filmed with a potato”) to high resolution cameras, there is a wide variety of radars with different capabilities. the radar unit in Teslas was pretty limited (basically designed for adaptive cruise control), and they showed that vision could outperform that radar (and have no interest in…

Yeah, (un)fortunately compared with cameras, eyes have really high resolution and (most relevant) a truly excellent dynamic range.

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

#244

Post by davedx »

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…

> The parking sensors on the Tesla are really good and very useful. They show a rough outline of what is around you and are displayed very nicely compared to some other cars. It is a real shame to remove this,

Perhaps the occupancy network is a good replacement? You're characterizing this as if Tesla Vision won't ever be able to replace it: "impossible to detect obstructions occluded from view by the hood".

What if the neural net persists where everything in the world is, and can extrapolate where objects are as the car moves? Then it's better than cameras, blind spots would actually be reduced.

I agree it's a dick move to remove it on cars that were already ordered though. Very Tesla.

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

#245

Post by simondotau »

flutas wrote: post #169
valine wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The output of the “occupancy network” isn’t displayed to the user right now. It doesn’t do classification, it’s just raw voxels. The real bummer is that without ultra sonics the car can’t see the ground in front of it. Hopefully tesla adds a bumper camera.

> The output of the “occupancy network” isn’t displayed to the user right now. I may be mis-understanding, or experiencing something else but I think it is if you're on FSD. It shows up as grey (elevated) regions around the visuals, not the standard "not a road" grey. The gates for my community began showing up in this update with it, but they look like about 2-3ft tall triangles, not a gate... though still recognize…

As stated by Tesla just a few days ago, the occupancy network is not currently shown in the customer-facing visualisation. (Some unrecognised objects are represented by generic placeholders. This is derived from, but not the output of, the occupancy network.)

This video links to the relevant citation, and if you continue watching for around ten seconds you can see examples of the occupancy network visualised:

https://youtu.be/ODSJsviD_SU?t=4337

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

#246

Post by rblatz »

valine wrote: post #122
atonse wrote: post #43

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…

Phantom braking is much improved on the FSD branch even during highway driving. Went from 2022.16 to beta 10.69 and it was night and day difference. Haven’t had a single phantom brake in weeks.

Is Tesla planning on replacing the autopilot branch with FSD? Because right now autopilot is trash and it’s basically a shareware/free trial of FSD and I am not willing to upgrade based on my current experience with AP.

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

#247

Post by kypro »

vzaliva wrote: post #110

As an engineer, I see little value in removing any sensors. No matter how noisy or limited they are, they bring additional information which, if processed, could improve overall accuracy. This is commonly referred to as "sensor fusion". So this is probably is purely cost-saving move. While I understand how radar could be expensive, I am not sure the saving on much cheaper ultrasound sensors is worth the loss of addit…

I've worked on 3d vision systems before and have experimented using different types of sensors in multi-sensor setups, and I'd argue that overwhelmingly it's a software problem.

More sensors help, but passed a point it's extremely marginal, plus you're throwing the majority of the raw data away anyway.

I do agree though - assuming processing power isn't a performance bottleneck here, more data is always better. But there's a reason humans only have two eyes and not three or four, for example. Two eyes are really all you need.

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

#248

Post by simondotau »

socialismisok wrote: post #176
potatochup wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this indicate that they are losing? In what regard? They certainly aren't losing on being a money making enterprise, before or after this change. Or did you mean w.r.t. having autonomous cars? I don't see how adding more work will buy runway...

When leadership sees numbers going in the wrong direction, they squeeze everywhere they can. Often this means making poor long term or poor engineering decisions in hopes they can squeeze some short term gain. What I see, from decades of being an engineer, is a company making a bad decision probably to cut costs. Why would Tesla need to cut costs? Something isn't working out correctly.

There's no evidence that Tesla has a unit cost problem. If anything the opposite is true. Tesla has significantly higher automotive margins than all mainstream competitors, despite producing 100% EVs with large expensive lithium battery packs. While their competitors mostly produce mature, highly cost optimised ICE vehicles.

The result is that Tesla has insane amounts of cash on hand and record-breaking profits, despite rapidly constructing/expanding three factories on three continents.

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

#249

Post by ethanbond »

davedx wrote: post #244
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…

> The parking sensors on the Tesla are really good and very useful. They show a rough outline of what is around you and are displayed very nicely compared to some other cars. It is a real shame to remove this, Perhaps the occupancy network is a good replacement? You're characterizing this as if Tesla Vision won't ever be able to replace it: "impossible to detect obstructions occluded from view by the hood". What if t…

I mean how do we know they’re not going to just staple human eyes and brains to the car and then it’ll be way better than what’s on the market today?

Why dream up hypotheticals of how this is good when it’s actually just… bad?

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

#250

Post by ethanbond »

ajross wrote: post #136
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…

So... your first sentence is very likely true. But it doesn't match your argument two paragraphs down: > The cheapest bargain-bin cars have this feature. Your $100k+ Model S or X will not. If cheap "bargain-bin" cars have these things, then there is no supply chain problem. In fact it's likely these parts aren't available in quantity anywhere right now and every manufacturer is having to deal with it. It's just not n…

Could you share a source about Ford removing safety sensors on cars that were already ordered?
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