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Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

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Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#91

Post by bumby »

watwut wrote: post #84
petilon wrote: post #33

I didn't find his answers particularly convincing. His answer focused on costs mainly, and how "the best part is no part". We have already seen multiple accidents caused by camera's limitations [1] which would not have happened if Tesla used Lidars. Cameras have poor dynamic range and can be easily blinded by bright surfaces. While it is true that humans do fine with only eyes, our eyes are significantly better than…

> It is not sufficient if, in aggregate, self-driving cars have fewer accidents It would be sufficient if it would be the case. With actual proof. Reality is that in limited abstract situations, self driving card maybe have some advantages. But, that is all that we can claim. And when self driving fails, somehow human is always the cause.

I disagree, but mainly because of the way humans perceive risk.

From a public standpoint I don’t think it’s sufficient because there’s inherent trust lacking in an automated system. With ape-driven systems we have a certain amount of trust because we can more accurately intuit what the other ape is reasonably thinking. This is not the case with autonomous driving which leads to a wider amount of uncertainty. Not unlike how we are intuitively less trusting of someone who is legitimately “crazy” even if statistically we don’ can’t say they are shown to be more dangerous.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#92

Post by fzeroracer »

ajross wrote: post #3
TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #2

This whole question about the vision boils down to "humans don't need it so cars should not need it too" the problem with this statement is that humans does not have wheels to move around, they have legs, but wheels are ridiculously simple compared to 4 legs tapping 160km/h on a highway. Same for birds - they also does not need jet engines to fly around, but imagine Airbus A380 flapping its wings and what kind of com…

But the question at hand is system control, not locomotion! You're not asking the automation to walk (well, I mean someday we will, but Teslas have wheels), nor the aircraft to flap. We want the automation to do what a human pilot would do. And that works with eyes. No, I think this argument is largely correct. And frankly settled: anyone who's driven recent FSD beta versions knows very well that the cars "see just f…

> The LIDAR folks were wrong, basically.

According to who? Tesla? Because Tesla has a vested interest in trying to prove that they're right even if they're obviously wrong. That's why they constantly try to downplay failures, software issues, device issues etc.

I'm very confused by the attempts to discredit the usefulness of LIDAR. It's another tool you can use to improve the accuracy of your model. Sure, you can use a screwdriver, flip it around and use it as a hammer. But if you need to deal with nails, it's better to grab a hammer instead.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#93

Post by aeternum »

flashgordon wrote: post #51
CharlesW wrote: post #11

I thought it was telling that Andrej immediately "reframed" the question because Lex asked the "wrong question". This is a classic evasion technique one learns from experience and/or media training. Lex's comment immediately after was a clever and gentle dig at Andrej's response. It seemed like all the "full cost" negatives Andrej mentioned were related to Tesla's ability to execute, and not what would actually produ…

That was hilarious. Basically (unless this needs a reframing/realignment/repositioning/reorienting): Q: "are less sensors less safe/effective?" A: "well more sensors are costly to the organization and add more tech debt so safety is orthogonal and not worth answering".

Lack of focus is a major problem for companies and we all know that tech debt leads to increased bug counts.

Team focus on vision which is by far the highest accuracy and bandwidth sensor allows for a faster rate of safety innovation given a constant team size.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#94

Post by frxx »

diskzero wrote: post #34
mongol wrote: post #30

What is it that makes Lidar so expensive? Is it something intrinsic to the technology that prevents costs from coming down?

A LIDAR sensor is a complex device with spinning motors, mirrors, lasers and more. Costs are coming down and less-expensive and more capable devices are coming to market. Once the price-points come way down, I wouldn't be surprised to see Tesla reconsider their decision to exclude them from their sensor platform.

There are also solid state LIDARs these days which involve no moving parts. Still use more power than radar though.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#95

Post by ion_fury »

CharlesW wrote: post #11

I thought it was telling that Andrej immediately "reframed" the question because Lex asked the "wrong question". This is a classic evasion technique one learns from experience and/or media training. Lex's comment immediately after was a clever and gentle dig at Andrej's response. It seemed like all the "full cost" negatives Andrej mentioned were related to Tesla's ability to execute, and not what would actually produ…

lex's comment did not strike me as a dig. i am actually concerned by your comment because it makes me wonder if i am missing other things too? it just doesnt seem like a dig. it seems like he thought of something funny and wanted to share it. am i alone in this?

and also i dont understand your assertion that it was some kind of cynical maneuver to re-frame the question. he could have also said "yes, more sensors are always better but you can add an arbitrary number of sensors and so we had to decide where to draw the line. the cameras we use are capable of meeting our goal of full self driving that is significantly safer than a human driver. and this also streamlines the production and software which has a material impact on our ability to actually produce the cars which is of course necessary to meet the goal of making self driving cars. bloat could actually kill tesla."

this is logically the same thing that he said in the interview, so whats cynical about it? how is it underhanded?

also is there some intrinsic limitation of the dynamic range of cameras? people are talking about problems with dynamic range being intrinsic to cameras but im pretty sure that cameras and especially camera suites that do not have more problems with dynamic range than a human eye are possible to make and probably already on the market.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#96

Post by aeternum »

petilon wrote: post #33

I didn't find his answers particularly convincing. His answer focused on costs mainly, and how "the best part is no part". We have already seen multiple accidents caused by camera's limitations [1] which would not have happened if Tesla used Lidars. Cameras have poor dynamic range and can be easily blinded by bright surfaces. While it is true that humans do fine with only eyes, our eyes are significantly better than…

The dynamic range is the reason Tesla know counts photons rather than use traditional camera processing. They basically remove the concept of exposure entirely and simply pass the sensor photon counts to the neural net.

This approach not only simpler as it removes photo processing/encoding but the result is that the NN can operate with a very high dynamic range similar to the human eye and in many cases can be sensitive on the single-photon level.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#97

Post by jeffbee »

aeternum wrote: post #93
flashgordon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was hilarious. Basically (unless this needs a reframing/realignment/repositioning/reorienting): Q: "are less sensors less safe/effective?" A: "well more sensors are costly to the organization and add more tech debt so safety is orthogonal and not worth answering".

Lack of focus is a major problem for companies and we all know that tech debt leads to increased bug counts. Team focus on vision which is by far the highest accuracy and bandwidth sensor allows for a faster rate of safety innovation given a constant team size.

Tesla engineers are currently doing post-commit review of Twitter source code. Focus is the last thing I would credit them with.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#98

Post by BurningFrog »

akira2501 wrote: post #87
petilon wrote: post #33

I didn't find his answers particularly convincing. His answer focused on costs mainly, and how "the best part is no part". We have already seen multiple accidents caused by camera's limitations [1] which would not have happened if Tesla used Lidars. Cameras have poor dynamic range and can be easily blinded by bright surfaces. While it is true that humans do fine with only eyes, our eyes are significantly better than…

> While it is true that humans do fine with only eyes, our eyes are significantly better than cameras. They also have better failure modes and a really sophisticated error management system. They are susceptible to optical illusions, though. > It is not sufficient if, in aggregate, self-driving cars have fewer accidents. This is the incorrect analysis anyways. This was always going to be true because a large portion…

> a large portion of accidents are single vehicle accidents where the driver was at fault for the crash. Usually due to speeding, alcohol, youth, or a combination of them.

Also plenty of suicides in that group, which confuses the stats.

We really need SDCs to have fewer accidents than human drivers, excluding the suicides.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#99

Post by judge2020 »

flashgordon wrote: post #51
CharlesW wrote: post #11

I thought it was telling that Andrej immediately "reframed" the question because Lex asked the "wrong question". This is a classic evasion technique one learns from experience and/or media training. Lex's comment immediately after was a clever and gentle dig at Andrej's response. It seemed like all the "full cost" negatives Andrej mentioned were related to Tesla's ability to execute, and not what would actually produ…

That was hilarious. Basically (unless this needs a reframing/realignment/repositioning/reorienting): Q: "are less sensors less safe/effective?" A: "well more sensors are costly to the organization and add more tech debt so safety is orthogonal and not worth answering".

Munro’s cost breakdown is much more informative in just how much it’ll save in terms of parts/labor. https://youtu.be/LS3Vk0NPFDE

In general the ‘harm to consumers’ is really just making it more likely they damage the car in a parking lot or their garage, which tells you where their priorities are (sales, Automotive gross profit). Assuming occupancy network works, the only real blind spot left is if something in front of the car changes in between it turning off and on (assuming occupancy will 'remember' the map around it when it goes to sleep).

Also, Tesla’s strategy for safety is seemingly “excel in industry standard tests, ie. IIHS and EuroNCAP”, so this might be a case of the measure becoming a target.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#100

Post by ajross »

fzeroracer wrote: post #92
ajross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the question at hand is system control, not locomotion! You're not asking the automation to walk (well, I mean someday we will, but Teslas have wheels), nor the aircraft to flap. We want the automation to do what a human pilot would do. And that works with eyes. No, I think this argument is largely correct. And frankly settled: anyone who's driven recent FSD beta versions knows very well that the cars "see just f…

> The LIDAR folks were wrong, basically. According to who? Tesla? Because Tesla has a vested interest in trying to prove that they're right even if they're obviously wrong. That's why they constantly try to downplay failures, software issues, device issues etc. I'm very confused by the attempts to discredit the usefulness of LIDAR. It's another tool you can use to improve the accuracy of your model. Sure, you can use…

The causality goes the other way. The LIDAR claim was that Tesla's vision approach couldn't work. It did.
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