Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video] • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by MichaelZuo » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

touisteur wrote: post #383

snovv_crash wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source: have worked with some of the (admittedly last-gen) automotive RADAR chips, NXP in particular. The issue is the number of false positives, stationary objects need to be filtered out. Something like a drainage grill on the street generates extremely strong returns. RADAR isn't high enough resolution to differentiate the size of something, you only have ~10 degree resolution, and after that you need to go by str…

Hi, thanks. Thought it might be so. Still... RADAR can have high(er) angular resolution with (e.g.) phased arrays (linear or not) and digital beamforming. I guess it's the way the industry works and it wants small cheap composable parts, but using the full width of the car for a sensor array you could get amazing angular accuracy, even with cheap simple antennas. MIMO is also supposed to give somewhat better angular…

There's also a legitimate harm to consumers with such a large radar array in the front bumper. Because even a minor fender bender could total a $50k car.

So the car would be very difficult to sell since few people are willing to pay much higher insurance premiums just for that.

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

#422

Post by friend_and_foe » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

P_I_Staker wrote: post #418

friend_and_foe wrote: post #89

I remember watching an interview with George Hotz when Comma.ai was young, where he essentially said this as a critique of Tesla. He's a bit of a showman and likes to invite a little controversy when he says things, but I found myself agreeing with his point. It's not surprising to see such a practical company like Tesla face the facts about all these sensors eventually.

> such a practical company like Tesla Where are you getting that from? Tesla has always seemed pie in the sky, and hardly a down to earth company at all throughout the history. I'm basing this one both their public record, and reputation within the auto industry.

Tesla created the modern electric vehicle industry. They're innovators, sure, and they push limits, but their priority has always been to actually build. And they do.

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

#423

Post by Reason077 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

codeflo wrote: post #366

Reason077 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”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.

> 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. In theory, cars should be use mechanical legs instead of wheels for transportation, that's how animals do it. In theory, plane wings should flap around, that's the way birds do it. My point being: the way biology solved something may not always be the best way to do it with technology.

> ”In theory, cars should be use mechanical legs instead of wheels for transportation, that's how animals do it.”

Wheels and legs solve different problems. Wheels aren’t very useful without perfectly smooth surfaces to run them on. If roads were a natural phenomenon that had existed millions of years ago, then isn’t it plausible that some animals might have evolved wheels to move around faster and more efficiently?

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

#424

Post by lnsru » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

oxplot wrote: post #332

lnsru wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in US. Tesla has nothing to throw against some serious cars like Mercedes EQS or EQS SUV. Hyundai is also catching up. Charging infrastructure isn’t an issue in Europe anymore and is getting better and better every year. Tesla supercharger for free at the beginning was a big deal. That’s why I am looking for used model X from 2017 right now. 5000€ in free electricity a year is a nice advantage. I also have open…

> Tesla has nothing to throw against some serious cars like Mercedes EQS or EQS SUV. Besides sensationalist comments, do you actually have a list of what areas the Mercedes excel that Tesla doesn't? I can't take "serious car" seriously - like what, Tesla is kidding?

Let’s talk about my future Model X 2017 with free supercharging. The chassis is disaster from beginning to the end. The car has air suspension, it’s nice. But! You go with low setting, tires don’t last 10k miles. You go with high settings, axles are suddenly broken. After 60000 miles all parts under the car must be replaced. Not funny and not cheap either. Last car I heard of such nonsense was 25 years old Renault Laguna 1. Mercedes or BMW do not need chassis rebuild every 100k km.

Btw EQS has greater range.

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

#425

Post by enragedcacti » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #82

threeseed wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that (most) humans manage to drive around safely and successfully in current roads proves that the information needed exists in the pixel-space But that doesn't mean that it translates to a car. We constantly move our 576MP resolution eyes in multiple orientations in order to visualise a scene and focus on the most important areas. Cars have fixed, low-quality cameras. We then interpret this data using the…

> 576MP Actually our eyes are more like 8MP: https://www.picturecorrect.com/what-is-the-resolution-of-the... Perhaps higher synthetic resolution from moving our eyes about, or perhaps that is meaningless.

It could be reframed as saying we have a peak acuity equivalent to a 576MP camera of the same FOV with a theoretical max of 20 samples per second (50 ms to move targets, realistically probably more like single digits). The 8MP comparison is only relevant if there are so many targets that need constant full resolution that you can't focus on all of them or the targets are so large that they are larger than the peak acuity FOV. In practice this is not the case because we can identify something once and keep tracking it in the periphery without issues and something that large will likely be extremely easy to identify.

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

#426

Post by Nomentatus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #408

Nomentatus wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's an expensive dead-end for most purposes, esp re the insane mapping. Ok for city robo-taxis. Doesn't solve the real problem to be solved.

Cars drive in cities, last I checked.

I guess you're saying that "cities are mapped, dude." But not mapped in anything like the way Waymo maps for this purpose: if I heard right, yesterday, mapped to the centimeter and very frequently updated to deal with any changes of any kind!

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

#427

Post by Nomentatus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #412

Nomentatus wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're again gainsaying his explanation, but gainsaying says nothing that helps anyone else make a decision. How are the rest of us who aren't psychic to know he's lying?

I'm not gainsaying his explanation. You don't seem to understand that a function of his explanation is what Tesla is willing to invest and their ability to recoup in a sale of the car.

Oy.

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

#428

Post by Nomentatus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #409

Nomentatus wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes. I'd be a lot better Go player if it was just a matter of seeing the board.

It is yikes - what's shocking is that you seem to be advocating for that same exact perspective for... driving a car???

Nope. There's definitely mapping, and then, much, much more. You're stuffing words in my mouth.

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

#429

Post by Nomentatus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

cbsmith wrote: post #307

Nomentatus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get to this conclusion if you're sure Andrej is lying, and that the risks cited are smoke; but only then. BTW, I've upgraded my sneakers after a couple falls on a rough beach with tangled driftwood (drift trees, really) proved their cheap too-slick surface had real world consequences. I was lucky not to break a bone. I'm going to bet he isn't lying, but I can understand someone making the opposite bet, market…

I don't think he's lying. I think he's looking at things from a particular perspective, and that perspective is being critiqued, as it should be.

True, he could be wildly misled but he's been around doing this for a while, so that seems unlikely. He could be truly delusional in either case but it's still kinda necessary to knock down his arguments or logic; and that's the critique or analysis I'm not seeing. Just assertions again and again that the real reason is economics triumphing over safety. I'm beginning to think that the idea that there are genuine trade-offs in life is just ungraspable or offensive to many.

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

#430

Post by aeternum » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #171

galangalalgol wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting side effect of only using visual sensors is that the failure modes will be more likely to resemble human ones. So people will say "yeah, I would have crashed in that situation too!". With ultrasonic and radar and ladar it may make far fewer mistakes but it is possible they might not be the same ones people make, so people will say "how did it mess that up?"

Sadly, that’s the worst way to actually design the system. I’d rather have two different technologies working together, with different failure modes. Not using radar (especially in cars that are already equipped) might make economic sense to Tesla, but I’d feel safer if visual processing was used WITH radar as opposed to instead of radar. I also expect an automated system to be better than the poor human in the drive…

It's far from the worst way, because if humans are visually blinded by the sun or snow or rain they will generally slowdown and expect the cars around them to do the same.

Predictability especially around failure cases is a very important feature. Most human drivers have no idea about the failure modes of lidar/radar.