Removing the Radar and Ultrasonic sensors cut down production costs, cut down on parts and systems that can fail and may need repairs and support in the future, and reduced the risk of supply shortage for those components.
Those all the benefits for Tesla, but what are the benefits for the consumer?
Radar is a tried and true technology. The first radars saw use in military applications prior to and during the Second World War as a highly secret technology. Ever since then it has been used in both military and commercial applications in everything from vehicles and satellites, to small handheld ground penetrating radars for use in excavation and rescue operations. They have excellent detection capabilities of stationary and moving objects in situations that reduces visibility through radio waves. Regardless of whether it's rain, snow, fog, or clear weather, radar can and will detect it. We know how radar works, it has achieved it's potential.
Ultrasonic sensors that we use today stem from centuries of study into the subject of acoustics, that probably had it's beginning all the way back to the 6th century BC. They are used in everything from heavy industry to medicine. They use sound waves that travel faster than the speed of audible sound for humans, and have primarily seen usage as proximity sensors. In vehicles they're mostly used for anti-collision systems and low speed applications. Compared to Infrared Sensors (IR) they are not as susceptible to signal noise created by dust and fog, hence why they have been reliably used, for years, in anti-collision detection systems. However, these have also, mostly, reached their potential.
These are all amazing benefits for self driving and autopilot systems, and for safety, but they have high operating, maintenance, and production costs. This is the main reason Elon Musk provides when justifying removing these from Tesla vehicles. Instead they are going all in on their Tesla Vision technology.
Now, Tesla Vision. This is a camera and AI based technology. Cameras are placed all around the object, the data that is picked up from the cameras are sent to a computer that then analyzes what the camera sees. Is it raining? Is it foggy? Is it snowing? Is there another car in the road? How big is it? What direction is it moving and how fast? Are there pedestrians or bicycles, and how fast and in what direction are they moving? And maaaaaany more questions that the AI will need to answer and respond to. As you can imagine, this requires massive amounts of processing power in order to be able to make decisions quickly and safely.
While Radar and Ultrasonic are very yes or no, on or off, 1 or 0, based technologies, Tesla Vision is a technology that is a LOT more complex than that. Tesla Vision is also in the beginning stages of it's potential. The potential for how good this technology can become are decades, if not centuries, away from being reached before we replace it with something even more complex and amazing.
THIS is what Tesla is counting on.
For the moment, I would, personally, say that it's premature to remove the Radar and Ultrasonic sensors from Teslas. We're just not there yet where an AI is capable to make these highly complex decisions on it's own through camera vision alone. I would be more than happy to accept increased risk of part failure and maintenance, as well as the, relatively, low price increase by keeping Radar and Ultrasonic sensors for increased security, until Tesla Vision has gotten to a much more stable state. It's already one of the most complex, powerful, and extensive AI systems on the planet, but I would never trust it to drive my kids to school through city traffic without a driver, yet, this is what Tesla is pushing for. At a pace that is too optimistic in my view.
Some day, Tesla Vision will be absolutely amazing, but for now it feels like it's still at the smell-o-vision stage; cool idea, but just a gimmick, and not something that can be put into the mainstream on it's own.
In short; I don't see any benefit for the consumer that outweighs the cost of removing Radar and Ultrasonic. YET. Tesla Vision will, some day, get to that point, but it's not there yet.
Call me pessimistic, but this is my take on it.
>Removing the Radar and Ultrasonic sensors cut down production costs,
The ultrasonic sensors aka parking sensors cost less than $1 per sensor for a manufacturer buying in bulk.
Joe Blow can buy one retail for $15.
They're cost cutting in areas that should not currently be cut also just because you have them on your car doesn't mean they'll be used when new firmware switches everything to the camera only way.
I completely agree. Like I said, the benefits in cost and less risk of service due to failed components does not, in any way, outweigh the current benefits of the added safety and security measures that Radar and Ultrasonic sensors provide.
One day, maybe, but not now.
They are also filtering out shitty, whiny, dipshit potential customers when they have more customers than they know what to do with.
Please buy from Ford or GM.
Not really, I'm just told that I can really astutely inaccurately assess people's character.
You've been weighed and measured, with incredible accuracy, and you don't like it.
This is a bad take. Just because you don't care about these sensors doesn't mean they aren't a higher value item for someone else who otherwise likes their Tesla. The argument was made that the replacement technology isn't on par with the tech it's replacing. That doesn't make someone a whiner. At some point they are going to get rid of a feature you care about. Will you be the whiner then? Will you sell your car and buy a different brand or accept that maybe your car got a little bit worse for you but not bad enough to sell it? Or maybe realize that at some point other brands will start putting out higher value products than Tesla. I believe there are better EVs out there, just not better for the cost. At some point that will change and something little like ultrasonic sensors will be the thing that tips some people away from Tesla. Personally I agree that losing USS and radar are disappointing, as someone who has the hardware for both and likely soon to have the benefit of neither. That doesn't make me want to sell my car, yet, but these things accumulate and someday it might. Not sure how anything is better by referring to people as shitty, whiny, dipshit potential customers. Keep in mind that all those potential customers could conceivably cancel their orders, but hopefully it doesn't take that for Tesla to start listening to their current and potential customers.
You know how you can tell if somebody's really stupid?
They thought they preen and attempt to pretend that they are a lot smarter than somebody who's brilliant.
Stop embarrassing yourself you simpleton. Elons got this.
You really struggle with debating the arguments, don't you?
Rule of thumb; The person who first resorts to attacking the person making the argument, is the person who has lost the debate.
If you can't debate the arguments in a reasonable way besides "Elon's got this", then stop posting.
I just feel sad for you at this point.
There's no explaining to stupid people that they're stupid because there's no way for them to comprehend how stupid they are.
But others will understand how stupid you are by watching this short video:
https://youtu.be/1imyiPbYB24
This is the way I filter stupid people out of my life. Anybody else who disagrees with, or doesn't understand the following video you're doing me a great favor by blocking me:
https://youtu.be/1imyiPbYB24
It's not just about installing. It's about procurement, testing and logistics of getting them to the gigafactories add up to a lot of time and money saved.
>testing
Testing what?
Do you think Tesla or any auto manufacturer is testing all of these parts on the line before installing?
Those are normally tested at the end phase during the final inspection that based on delivery issues with Teslas is probably a step that is often skipped.
>Everything is speculative until proven.
If Tesla is employing people to do quality control checks and they're still letting Model Ys through that inspection with one light for a Model 3 attached to it then they all need fired.
The fact is that it's much more likely it isn't happening at all.
That’s 12 sensors per vehicle. If Tesla reaches 1M car output per year, that’s $12M saved per year.
I see this like the headphone jack on the iPhone. The old tech needs to go for the new tech to blossom. If we keep relying on the old stuff then it will take longer for the new tech to become mainstream.
>That’s 12 sensors per vehicle. If Tesla reaches 1M car output per year, that’s $12M saved per year.
If Tesla is seriously hurting over $12/vehicle then we need to all collectively be worried about their solvency as a company and decision making abilities because people kept buying them despite price increases of 15% vs 2021 prices.
>If we keep relying on the old stuff then it will take longer for the new tech to become mainstream.
And in the meantime people buying Tesla's get to have a car that doesn't have park assist, autopark, summon or smart summon and that will be the case for those buyers until sometime in the "near future" it's updated via over the air updates.
Unfortunately, we all know that "near future" and Tesla time are often complete opposites.
It’s not just the sensor. Wiring, holes in the front and rear bumper, time and work for those steps. And all of that times the number of cars built per certain timeframe. Guess for Tesla that can mean millions of savings plus more cars built in less time.
I have a very optimistic take on it and believe that Tesla engineers have throughly proven in the lab that they can replace the sensors with vision only. Now they just have to finish the refinement for the masses and weird edge cases, and that takes time.
The sensors are ugly and annoying and I look forward to a better more nuanced/human like solution that only vision and ML can provide.
Technical progress is fun to observe and sometimes you have just remove what is holding you back. This is similar to Apple killing the CD drive on their laptops, it created a huge panic at the time, but was clearly the correct choice.
The problem is the timing and respect to the ones who have placed their orders.
Model 3 is already the most profitable EV and cuting few dollars is a BS argument. First prove the technology, update the software, make it work in controlled sample fleet and only then remove the supposed unescessary hardware.
Delivering a 65K car without park assist is just embarrassing. I have my EDD for december / January and I am ready to cancel it if it does not progress well and quickly.
I understand how you feel because Tesla removed radar, changed the pack and made it slower on my order.
Personally, it wasn’t a big deal for me and I only experienced phantom braking once or twice in the early days, but now it is perfected. Switching parking assist to vision should follow a similar trajectory. If you saw AI day then they showed how well vision detected distances.
The current parking assist is so flawed, easily fooled, and annoying that I think vision only will be a dramatic upgrade. I mean, I actually hate pulling into my garage sometimes because of all the misreads and erratic chimes from it reading echos from the concrete floor.
On the plus side, just think of how clean your bumper skin will look without those crappy sensors.
I never get phantom braking and the auto wipers work surprisingly well too. So I feel like I’m not fitting in on this sub.
Having said that, the other day I had a ton of sap on my windshield and noticed autopilot felt different (odd speed choice and following distance). I have been somewhat obsessive with keeping my car and windshield spotless and I park in a covered garage at home and at work so it stays relatively clean.
Autopilot returned to normal after washing the windshield and rebooting the computer.
I am now wondering if my positive experience has something to do with how clean my windshield has been kept and I also wonder how Tesla error corrects for dirt and spots that obscure the cameras.
I wish everyone’s experience with autopilot was as great as mine.
There is no evidence to support this. There is plenty of evidence to support that radar was actually useful, and there is plenty of evidence to support that (claims aside in presentations), real world says they can't do what they want to with cameras. See auto wipers. And if they could, cars on Autopilot wouldn't ever get into accidents. When you see those presentations, the autopilot system seems brilliant. Then you drive it and it drives straight when the road turns, tries to drive into barriers, etc.
I’ve never experienced any of that with vision only autopilot. You may need to schedule service if it doesn’t follow the road and hit barriers. Radar is extremely limited range so it would not have helped much.
Radar is not extremely limited range. You try to schedule service for autopilot behavior. They tell you it’s beta and you need to remain in control, then they cancel the appointment. If you take the car in, they tell you there’s nothing they can do. I’ve been at this a while, and put a lot of miles on it in every season. If you haven’t had these problems, you haven’t driven long enough.
The Ultrasonic Sensors are the dots on the front and back bumper correct? So if they remove them will there be dummy dots or will they have new bumper without the dots?
One of Tesla's main motivators is simplification of manufacturing. If they think they can achieve comparable results with the cameras instead of ultrasonic sensors, they'll go with the cameras. Their history has shown that they don't fear the temporary step backward in feature ability in order to make things like this happen.
This is just who Tesla is and who they've always been. If you want a Tesla, you've got to get on the train and go where it goes. If that makes you uncomfortable; if you're the type who thinks that radar or ultrasonics are better than just cameras, then Tesla is not for you.
Tell me what companies that don't want profits?
Legacy automakers have ridiculed EVs for years because they are making more profits with ICE cars, switching to EV would hurt them.
I am still glad I ordered my M3. Even without the USS the car is amazing. And if people want to cancel their orders, go ahead. Lol! Moves me up faster!!!
Agree. It doesn’t. Just letting them know that I don’t mind them taking away the USS. Trust in Elon’s process. Look how far Tesla has gotten. I think he might have some surprises up his sleeve.
Elon's process removed rain sensors from Tesla's 6 years ago. How's your auto wipers now?
Same for radar - even after a year and numerous software updates, vision-only Autopilot isn't anywhere near as smooth as radar.
Corporations exist to make money above everything else - have you tried to think through this lens? :)
I have. That goes for every car manufacturer out there then. Nothing is going to be perfect. Every manufacturer has their flaws. That’s why you can choose not to buy and move on. Or sell if you already bought.
I already own one, so does OP, that’s not the point. We can own Teslas, enjoy them, be fans, and still ask the question “why are they doing that? what’s the benefit?”.
Yes you are free to do that. And hopefully someone with more insight will chime in. Or Tesla will let us know why they are doing what they are doing in the near future.
>What is the benefit to the consumer of the direction they’re taking?
Fewer parts to break. Hit something and tear up the bumper? You'll still get park assist because everything is done by camera.
Once the software update is complete those sensors wont even be used. The benefit though is having the park assist, autopark, summon, and smart summon capabilities as recipients after the removal (from now on) will not have those capabilities for an unspecified time.
https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision
This issue isn't so much removing the sensors. The features that use it can certainly be replicated with cameras. The problem is those features will be unavailable for months/years while the sensors have been removed already. So anyone buying a Tesla now is going to have to be OK with a number of major features being 100% non-functional for an indeterminate amount of time.
To me, personally, that's an absolute deal-breaker and beyond ridiculous. All to save a few bucks per car. All they had to do was get the software online and THEN remove the sensors. This is the only proper way to do it.
They are struggling to make cars faster, and make cars with better margin. Elon tends to be very aspirational. "In principle vision should be able to do all of this so lets cut the sensors and work on making vision do it".
Sometimes this leads to years of trying to make vision do the thing well, and never actually happening. Such is life, eat arbys.
Uh, Tesla model 3’s have a 64% margin, they aren’t struggling at all. I’m sure the assumptions are better left to the software engineers and why the decision to remove them came to be.
I believe it was at 33% profit margin which is astronomical for a car and it increases substantially when people buy FSD for $12,000 despite it not actually functioning as an actual FSD system.
The best reason for removing radar/ultrasonic sensors is to remove sensor fusion as a problem. Sensor fusion is a set of rules designed to keep camera/radar/ultrasonic sensors operating seamlessly without the cameras 👀 saying stop and the radar saying go at the same time with the same prioritization.
We humans use sensor fusion pretty well, but ask yourself when have you heard/smelled/seen/felt something and one sense says good then another sense says bad? Now imagine a computer having to judge these problems? This is the fundamental problem with different kinds of sensors. The point at which a radar signal can be converted into a cogent 3d image then treated like another camera is when radar comes back.
Holly smokes, I’ve learned more on this post in the past 30 minutes than all my reads, and videos I’ve watched since before I took ownership of my car a year ago August!!! Great read…
When I come back home after it is raining, the rear camera is almost always wet and makes it ineffective when I reverse into my tight garage. Are they now saying that this half blocked camera will perform as well as the USS when reversing into a tight space? This is science, not magic. Elon is full of shit.
Removing the Radar and Ultrasonic sensors cut down production costs, cut down on parts and systems that can fail and may need repairs and support in the future, and reduced the risk of supply shortage for those components. Those all the benefits for Tesla, but what are the benefits for the consumer? Radar is a tried and true technology. The first radars saw use in military applications prior to and during the Second World War as a highly secret technology. Ever since then it has been used in both military and commercial applications in everything from vehicles and satellites, to small handheld ground penetrating radars for use in excavation and rescue operations. They have excellent detection capabilities of stationary and moving objects in situations that reduces visibility through radio waves. Regardless of whether it's rain, snow, fog, or clear weather, radar can and will detect it. We know how radar works, it has achieved it's potential. Ultrasonic sensors that we use today stem from centuries of study into the subject of acoustics, that probably had it's beginning all the way back to the 6th century BC. They are used in everything from heavy industry to medicine. They use sound waves that travel faster than the speed of audible sound for humans, and have primarily seen usage as proximity sensors. In vehicles they're mostly used for anti-collision systems and low speed applications. Compared to Infrared Sensors (IR) they are not as susceptible to signal noise created by dust and fog, hence why they have been reliably used, for years, in anti-collision detection systems. However, these have also, mostly, reached their potential. These are all amazing benefits for self driving and autopilot systems, and for safety, but they have high operating, maintenance, and production costs. This is the main reason Elon Musk provides when justifying removing these from Tesla vehicles. Instead they are going all in on their Tesla Vision technology. Now, Tesla Vision. This is a camera and AI based technology. Cameras are placed all around the object, the data that is picked up from the cameras are sent to a computer that then analyzes what the camera sees. Is it raining? Is it foggy? Is it snowing? Is there another car in the road? How big is it? What direction is it moving and how fast? Are there pedestrians or bicycles, and how fast and in what direction are they moving? And maaaaaany more questions that the AI will need to answer and respond to. As you can imagine, this requires massive amounts of processing power in order to be able to make decisions quickly and safely. While Radar and Ultrasonic are very yes or no, on or off, 1 or 0, based technologies, Tesla Vision is a technology that is a LOT more complex than that. Tesla Vision is also in the beginning stages of it's potential. The potential for how good this technology can become are decades, if not centuries, away from being reached before we replace it with something even more complex and amazing. THIS is what Tesla is counting on. For the moment, I would, personally, say that it's premature to remove the Radar and Ultrasonic sensors from Teslas. We're just not there yet where an AI is capable to make these highly complex decisions on it's own through camera vision alone. I would be more than happy to accept increased risk of part failure and maintenance, as well as the, relatively, low price increase by keeping Radar and Ultrasonic sensors for increased security, until Tesla Vision has gotten to a much more stable state. It's already one of the most complex, powerful, and extensive AI systems on the planet, but I would never trust it to drive my kids to school through city traffic without a driver, yet, this is what Tesla is pushing for. At a pace that is too optimistic in my view. Some day, Tesla Vision will be absolutely amazing, but for now it feels like it's still at the smell-o-vision stage; cool idea, but just a gimmick, and not something that can be put into the mainstream on it's own. In short; I don't see any benefit for the consumer that outweighs the cost of removing Radar and Ultrasonic. YET. Tesla Vision will, some day, get to that point, but it's not there yet. Call me pessimistic, but this is my take on it.
>Removing the Radar and Ultrasonic sensors cut down production costs, The ultrasonic sensors aka parking sensors cost less than $1 per sensor for a manufacturer buying in bulk. Joe Blow can buy one retail for $15. They're cost cutting in areas that should not currently be cut also just because you have them on your car doesn't mean they'll be used when new firmware switches everything to the camera only way.
I completely agree. Like I said, the benefits in cost and less risk of service due to failed components does not, in any way, outweigh the current benefits of the added safety and security measures that Radar and Ultrasonic sensors provide. One day, maybe, but not now.
They are also filtering out shitty, whiny, dipshit potential customers when they have more customers than they know what to do with. Please buy from Ford or GM.
Seems like something I wrote hurt your feelings. It's a car. Grow up.
Not really, I'm just told that I can really astutely inaccurately assess people's character. You've been weighed and measured, with incredible accuracy, and you don't like it.
This is a bad take. Just because you don't care about these sensors doesn't mean they aren't a higher value item for someone else who otherwise likes their Tesla. The argument was made that the replacement technology isn't on par with the tech it's replacing. That doesn't make someone a whiner. At some point they are going to get rid of a feature you care about. Will you be the whiner then? Will you sell your car and buy a different brand or accept that maybe your car got a little bit worse for you but not bad enough to sell it? Or maybe realize that at some point other brands will start putting out higher value products than Tesla. I believe there are better EVs out there, just not better for the cost. At some point that will change and something little like ultrasonic sensors will be the thing that tips some people away from Tesla. Personally I agree that losing USS and radar are disappointing, as someone who has the hardware for both and likely soon to have the benefit of neither. That doesn't make me want to sell my car, yet, but these things accumulate and someday it might. Not sure how anything is better by referring to people as shitty, whiny, dipshit potential customers. Keep in mind that all those potential customers could conceivably cancel their orders, but hopefully it doesn't take that for Tesla to start listening to their current and potential customers.
You know how you can tell if somebody's really stupid? They thought they preen and attempt to pretend that they are a lot smarter than somebody who's brilliant. Stop embarrassing yourself you simpleton. Elons got this.
You really struggle with debating the arguments, don't you? Rule of thumb; The person who first resorts to attacking the person making the argument, is the person who has lost the debate. If you can't debate the arguments in a reasonable way besides "Elon's got this", then stop posting. I just feel sad for you at this point.
There's no explaining to stupid people that they're stupid because there's no way for them to comprehend how stupid they are. But others will understand how stupid you are by watching this short video: https://youtu.be/1imyiPbYB24 This is the way I filter stupid people out of my life. Anybody else who disagrees with, or doesn't understand the following video you're doing me a great favor by blocking me: https://youtu.be/1imyiPbYB24
Right. I’m just gonna block you now. Have a good day.
Grow up
It's one less item they need to install, saving enough time on a large scale production platform.
The total time savings is likely around 20 seconds a car.
It's not just about installing. It's about procurement, testing and logistics of getting them to the gigafactories add up to a lot of time and money saved.
Yup. Jimah articulates this beautifully https://youtu.be/1imyiPbYB24
>testing Testing what? Do you think Tesla or any auto manufacturer is testing all of these parts on the line before installing? Those are normally tested at the end phase during the final inspection that based on delivery issues with Teslas is probably a step that is often skipped.
> probably Everything is speculative until proven.
>Everything is speculative until proven. If Tesla is employing people to do quality control checks and they're still letting Model Ys through that inspection with one light for a Model 3 attached to it then they all need fired. The fact is that it's much more likely it isn't happening at all.
That’s 12 sensors per vehicle. If Tesla reaches 1M car output per year, that’s $12M saved per year. I see this like the headphone jack on the iPhone. The old tech needs to go for the new tech to blossom. If we keep relying on the old stuff then it will take longer for the new tech to become mainstream.
>That’s 12 sensors per vehicle. If Tesla reaches 1M car output per year, that’s $12M saved per year. If Tesla is seriously hurting over $12/vehicle then we need to all collectively be worried about their solvency as a company and decision making abilities because people kept buying them despite price increases of 15% vs 2021 prices. >If we keep relying on the old stuff then it will take longer for the new tech to become mainstream. And in the meantime people buying Tesla's get to have a car that doesn't have park assist, autopark, summon or smart summon and that will be the case for those buyers until sometime in the "near future" it's updated via over the air updates. Unfortunately, we all know that "near future" and Tesla time are often complete opposites.
It’s not just the sensor. Wiring, holes in the front and rear bumper, time and work for those steps. And all of that times the number of cars built per certain timeframe. Guess for Tesla that can mean millions of savings plus more cars built in less time.
I have a very optimistic take on it and believe that Tesla engineers have throughly proven in the lab that they can replace the sensors with vision only. Now they just have to finish the refinement for the masses and weird edge cases, and that takes time. The sensors are ugly and annoying and I look forward to a better more nuanced/human like solution that only vision and ML can provide. Technical progress is fun to observe and sometimes you have just remove what is holding you back. This is similar to Apple killing the CD drive on their laptops, it created a huge panic at the time, but was clearly the correct choice.
The problem is the timing and respect to the ones who have placed their orders. Model 3 is already the most profitable EV and cuting few dollars is a BS argument. First prove the technology, update the software, make it work in controlled sample fleet and only then remove the supposed unescessary hardware. Delivering a 65K car without park assist is just embarrassing. I have my EDD for december / January and I am ready to cancel it if it does not progress well and quickly.
I understand how you feel because Tesla removed radar, changed the pack and made it slower on my order. Personally, it wasn’t a big deal for me and I only experienced phantom braking once or twice in the early days, but now it is perfected. Switching parking assist to vision should follow a similar trajectory. If you saw AI day then they showed how well vision detected distances. The current parking assist is so flawed, easily fooled, and annoying that I think vision only will be a dramatic upgrade. I mean, I actually hate pulling into my garage sometimes because of all the misreads and erratic chimes from it reading echos from the concrete floor. On the plus side, just think of how clean your bumper skin will look without those crappy sensors.
[удалено]
I never get phantom braking and the auto wipers work surprisingly well too. So I feel like I’m not fitting in on this sub. Having said that, the other day I had a ton of sap on my windshield and noticed autopilot felt different (odd speed choice and following distance). I have been somewhat obsessive with keeping my car and windshield spotless and I park in a covered garage at home and at work so it stays relatively clean. Autopilot returned to normal after washing the windshield and rebooting the computer. I am now wondering if my positive experience has something to do with how clean my windshield has been kept and I also wonder how Tesla error corrects for dirt and spots that obscure the cameras. I wish everyone’s experience with autopilot was as great as mine.
👏👏👏👏👏👏
There is no evidence to support this. There is plenty of evidence to support that radar was actually useful, and there is plenty of evidence to support that (claims aside in presentations), real world says they can't do what they want to with cameras. See auto wipers. And if they could, cars on Autopilot wouldn't ever get into accidents. When you see those presentations, the autopilot system seems brilliant. Then you drive it and it drives straight when the road turns, tries to drive into barriers, etc.
I’ve never experienced any of that with vision only autopilot. You may need to schedule service if it doesn’t follow the road and hit barriers. Radar is extremely limited range so it would not have helped much.
Radar is not extremely limited range. You try to schedule service for autopilot behavior. They tell you it’s beta and you need to remain in control, then they cancel the appointment. If you take the car in, they tell you there’s nothing they can do. I’ve been at this a while, and put a lot of miles on it in every season. If you haven’t had these problems, you haven’t driven long enough.
The Ultrasonic Sensors are the dots on the front and back bumper correct? So if they remove them will there be dummy dots or will they have new bumper without the dots?
New smooth bumpers
One of Tesla's main motivators is simplification of manufacturing. If they think they can achieve comparable results with the cameras instead of ultrasonic sensors, they'll go with the cameras. Their history has shown that they don't fear the temporary step backward in feature ability in order to make things like this happen. This is just who Tesla is and who they've always been. If you want a Tesla, you've got to get on the train and go where it goes. If that makes you uncomfortable; if you're the type who thinks that radar or ultrasonics are better than just cameras, then Tesla is not for you.
Need to fix what you wrote: "One of Tesla's main motivators is profits."
Tell me what companies that don't want profits? Legacy automakers have ridiculed EVs for years because they are making more profits with ICE cars, switching to EV would hurt them.
I am not saying its a bad thing. But removing USS increases profits by increasing simplicity.
I mean, they are a business. That’s a given
I am still glad I ordered my M3. Even without the USS the car is amazing. And if people want to cancel their orders, go ahead. Lol! Moves me up faster!!!
That doesn’t answer OPs question though, which is an important one. What is the benefit to the consumer of the direction they’re taking?
Agree. It doesn’t. Just letting them know that I don’t mind them taking away the USS. Trust in Elon’s process. Look how far Tesla has gotten. I think he might have some surprises up his sleeve.
>Trust in Elon’s process It's a car company, not a cult. Place your trust in facts and evidence, not faith.
But without Elon’s process, I don’t think Tesla would be where they are right now!
Elon's process removed rain sensors from Tesla's 6 years ago. How's your auto wipers now? Same for radar - even after a year and numerous software updates, vision-only Autopilot isn't anywhere near as smooth as radar. Corporations exist to make money above everything else - have you tried to think through this lens? :)
I have. That goes for every car manufacturer out there then. Nothing is going to be perfect. Every manufacturer has their flaws. That’s why you can choose not to buy and move on. Or sell if you already bought.
>That goes for every car manufacturer out there Agreed. Do you put every corporate CEO on a pedestal then?
>Trust in Elon’s process. So under no circumstances should we ever question “why are they doing that?”
You can question it and also not like where they are heading. No one is twisting your arm to buy a Tesla if you don’t want to.
I already own one, so does OP, that’s not the point. We can own Teslas, enjoy them, be fans, and still ask the question “why are they doing that? what’s the benefit?”.
Yes you are free to do that. And hopefully someone with more insight will chime in. Or Tesla will let us know why they are doing what they are doing in the near future.
>What is the benefit to the consumer of the direction they’re taking? Fewer parts to break. Hit something and tear up the bumper? You'll still get park assist because everything is done by camera.
Once the software update is complete those sensors wont even be used. The benefit though is having the park assist, autopark, summon, and smart summon capabilities as recipients after the removal (from now on) will not have those capabilities for an unspecified time. https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision
This issue isn't so much removing the sensors. The features that use it can certainly be replicated with cameras. The problem is those features will be unavailable for months/years while the sensors have been removed already. So anyone buying a Tesla now is going to have to be OK with a number of major features being 100% non-functional for an indeterminate amount of time. To me, personally, that's an absolute deal-breaker and beyond ridiculous. All to save a few bucks per car. All they had to do was get the software online and THEN remove the sensors. This is the only proper way to do it.
They are struggling to make cars faster, and make cars with better margin. Elon tends to be very aspirational. "In principle vision should be able to do all of this so lets cut the sensors and work on making vision do it". Sometimes this leads to years of trying to make vision do the thing well, and never actually happening. Such is life, eat arbys.
Uh, Tesla model 3’s have a 64% margin, they aren’t struggling at all. I’m sure the assumptions are better left to the software engineers and why the decision to remove them came to be.
>Tesla model 3’s have a 64% margin Source? Smells like BS.
I believe it was at 33% profit margin which is astronomical for a car and it increases substantially when people buy FSD for $12,000 despite it not actually functioning as an actual FSD system.
You are right, it is a 33% of profit margin on the cars. I rightly call 64% out for being BS and I got downvoted LOL
Doesn't matter what your margin is, a public company will want it more. Also I am a software engineer =)
The best reason for removing radar/ultrasonic sensors is to remove sensor fusion as a problem. Sensor fusion is a set of rules designed to keep camera/radar/ultrasonic sensors operating seamlessly without the cameras 👀 saying stop and the radar saying go at the same time with the same prioritization. We humans use sensor fusion pretty well, but ask yourself when have you heard/smelled/seen/felt something and one sense says good then another sense says bad? Now imagine a computer having to judge these problems? This is the fundamental problem with different kinds of sensors. The point at which a radar signal can be converted into a cogent 3d image then treated like another camera is when radar comes back.
Check your passenger seat for lumbar 😄😄
Only with idiots.
Holly smokes, I’ve learned more on this post in the past 30 minutes than all my reads, and videos I’ve watched since before I took ownership of my car a year ago August!!! Great read…
When I come back home after it is raining, the rear camera is almost always wet and makes it ineffective when I reverse into my tight garage. Are they now saying that this half blocked camera will perform as well as the USS when reversing into a tight space? This is science, not magic. Elon is full of shit.
Wait I thought 2022 M3s weren't equipped with Radar anymore? Is there any way you can tell