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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]

#251

Post by AlexandrB »

minhazm wrote: post #122
threeseed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was an ominous answer. We really should be focusing on what is the best solution and trying to solve price issues through existing techniques e.g. economies of scale, competition, miniaturisation. Instead they are trying to build whatever solution they can that fits in a pre-defined cost window. Except this isn't a new phone or sneakers we are trying to take to market it's something that will directly impact peopl…

There's an opportunity cost trying to get to the best solution. What about all of the people that die in the mean time while we delay rolling out something due to it not being perfect? Just doing some googling the Waymo stack is estimated to cost somewhere in the range of $50-100k, not including the car. A better solution that no one can afford is no solution at all. Ultimately the only requirement is that the system…

These kinds of moral arguments are silly because they hit a brick wall as soon as they encounter how society operates in practice. If Tesla has a moral obligation to roll out an FSD that's a just a little safer than humans, then do they not also have an obligation to make it available to all their competitors? If not, does every individual have a moral obligation to buy only Tesla cars? Do governments now have an obligation to subsidize Tesla cars so anyone can afford them? Etc.

And all this only considers first order effects. If a 2x safer FSD feels more dangerous that normal driving and thus reduces FSD uptake for a decade, doesn't Tesla have a moral obligation not to release it to preserve the perception of safety of self driving technology?

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

#252

Post by kalleboo »

RC_ITR wrote: post #248
eightysixfour wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fan of Tesla removing the sensors but a vehicle on a highway that isn’t moving the same direction as the car is not “trivial” with radar. No AEBs that use radar look for completely stopped objects after a certain speed because the number of false positives is so high.

So, yes, cars that are programmed to have AEB: perform well at AEB and not other tasks. We are in agreement here. (I even agree with you that those cars use Radar for AEB). Now, where we disagree is you implying that cars with AEB-level radar (literally $10 off-the-shelf parts with whatever sensor fusion some MobilEye intern dreams ups) are somehow the same as self-driving cars (the goal of Tesla Autopilot). Every se…

But if the radar just sees a static object and can't tell if it's an overhead sign or a car, and the camera vision is too washed out, how would sensor fusion help in your example?

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

#253

Post by Reason077 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #208
stefan_ wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is unhelpfully mixing radar and ultrasonic sensors. Ultrasonic sensors, as your video explains, are primarily used as a parking aid; they are tuned for too low a distance to be helpful in just about any kind of driving scenario at speed. Meanwhile, radar is the principal sensor used in systems like automatic emergency braking across the industry. It has no intersection with any of the parking stuff becaus…

The first famous autopilot crash was because a white semi-truck was washed out by the sun and confused for an overhead sign. That's literally trivial for a car with radar to detect. Amazing how people talk about stuff they have no idea about when it comes to Tesla.

> ”The first famous autopilot crash was because a white semi-truck was washed out by the sun and confused for an overhead sign.

That's literally trivial for a car with radar to detect.”

That crash occurred on a car which was using radar. Automotive radar generally doesn’t help to detect stationary objects.

Further, that crash occurred on a vehicle with the original autopilot version (AP1), which was based on Mobileye technology with Tesla’s autopilot software layered on top. Detection capabilities would have been similar to any vehicle using Mobileye for AEB at the time.

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

#254

Post by epgui »

nicbou wrote: post #210
ralfd wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming Karpathy is lying is quite a hot take to disregard his opinion. No. He makes it clear that he is very convinced about it. There is no relativism, no weasel words or couching in maybes. He could be wrong, of course, but he believes in what he is saying.

> no weasel words The video starts with him reframing the question instead of answering it

I regularly reframe questions when I think they're not the most interesting. It's a very common thing to do, especially in academia, that doesn't particularly indicate deception.

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

#255

Post by epgui »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #154

It's obviously a stupid decision to remove a direct source of range data (radar and ultrasound) in favor of an indirect one (vision). But on second thought this doesn't bother me that much because Tesla FSD is absolute garbage even with radar (and I don't think Tesla will get away with selling the FSD snake oil for much longer), so if vision-only is good enough for the base-level lane-keeping autopilot functionality…

Even if you were right, there's nothing "obvious" about that.

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

#256

Post by Nomentatus »

freejazz wrote: post #244
Nomentatus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right to note the advantages of lidar and (narrow range of) contrast problem for cameras (they arent eyes.) This is why the Uber human driver shouldn't have trusted the machine at night, in particular. But you still have to address his system argument, which was that adding geegaws that added little would actually increase overall risks along the supply chain (plus maintenance) while distracting the team and a…

"But you still have to address his system argument" Do you? It's his argument that he needs to substantiate... it's not my burden to confirm his conjecture. And even looking at it on its face... it's clearly self-serving bs. It doesn't seem to be a problem for any other car company, so I'm a bit confused as to why it's such a problem for Tesla. Of course, the obvious answer is that Tesla is cheap and doesn't want to…

You still have to address the argument he makes that the net effect on risk of keeping the lidar was in fact negative. You're just gainsaying it. That's not a contribution to any discussion.

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

#257

Post by Reason077 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #248
eightysixfour wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fan of Tesla removing the sensors but a vehicle on a highway that isn’t moving the same direction as the car is not “trivial” with radar. No AEBs that use radar look for completely stopped objects after a certain speed because the number of false positives is so high.

So, yes, cars that are programmed to have AEB: perform well at AEB and not other tasks. We are in agreement here. (I even agree with you that those cars use Radar for AEB). Now, where we disagree is you implying that cars with AEB-level radar (literally $10 off-the-shelf parts with whatever sensor fusion some MobilEye intern dreams ups) are somehow the same as self-driving cars (the goal of Tesla Autopilot). Every se…

> ”There is no one sensor that will do it. Full stop.”

Yet somehow, humans can drive cars with just a pair of optical sensors (mounted on a swivelling gimbal, of sorts).

In theory, a sufficiently capable AI should be able to drive a car at least as well as a human can using the same input: vision.

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

#258

Post by steve_adams_86 »

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’s one way to read it, but in my own experience the “do one thing really well” approach can yield far better results. Meaning, if vision is truly sufficient and you do it really well rather than a bunch of sensors “okay”, that may actually be safer overall. You might get far more focused and practical results from your efforts.

I’m not saying this is definitely true, and at the moment we probably can’t verify it either. I’m just “steel manning” his case, as Lex loves to say.

I think you’re probably correct that the business aspect was a significant factor, but perhaps it wasn’t everything.

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

#259

Post by YZF »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #241
YZF wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car typically doesn't have lights shining in all directions. My Tesla doesn't at an rate. At night, backing into my driveway, I can barely see anything on the back-up camera unless the brake lights come on. If it's raining heavily it's much worse. But the ultrasonic sensors are really good at detecting obstacles pretty much all around.

Reverse lights are literally mandated by law. Your Tesla has them, and if they're not bright enough that's a fairly cheap and easy problem to fix relative to the alternatives. Ultrasonics struggle in the rain, btw.

The sensors also detect obstacles on the side of the car where there's no lighting. Every problem has some sort of solution, but removing the ultrasonic sensors on the Tesla is going to result in poorer obstacle detection performance. Sure, if they add 360 lighting and more cameras they can make up for that.

EDIT: Also I'm not quite positive why the image is so dark when I reverse at night. But it still is. The slope and surface of the driveway might have something to do with that... Still I wouldn't trust that camera. The ultrasonic sensors otoh seem to do a pretty good job. That's just my experience.

EDIT2: I love the Tesla btw. The ultrasonic sensors seem to work pretty reliably, they're pretty much their own system, the argument about complexity doesn't really seem to hold water and on the face of it the cameras won't easily replace them...

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

#260

Post by hbarka »

Intuition + other examples tell you that radar and ultrasonic sensors work. Why do we twist ourselves to believe otherwise?

Elon removed the radar and ultrasonics for the simple fact that its supply chain logjam was screwing up the manufacturing schedule. They also realized that the profit margin can be sustained in an inflationary environment by simply removing these parts [1]. “Oh, we were going to remove them anyway because humans can see fine with just eyes and no radar, why can’t cars?” Tesla then turned up the marketing of the AI/vision hype lever once more to toss another shiny tech object and get buyers to ignore the fact that there is a regression of features in the newer cars going forward.

[1] https://youtu.be/LS3Vk0NPFDE

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