[HN Gopher] Tesla removes Ultrasonic sensors in favour of Tesla ...
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Tesla removes Ultrasonic sensors in favour of Tesla Vision
Author : dagmx
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-10-04 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tesla.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tesla.com)
| atonse wrote:
| 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 with the autopilot system. It's that simple.
| And I LOVE my model 3, the supercharger network, all else.
|
| I don't know what's going on over there but I am not remotely
| convinced that they have their act together with vision-only
| based autonomous driving.
| STRML wrote:
| 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 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.
|
| The cheapest bargain-bin cars have this feature. Your $100k+
| Model S or X will not.
|
| Even more concerning: some features simply cannot be replaced by
| camera. Tesla infamously does not have a front bumper camera,
| making it impossible to detect obstructions occluded from view by
| the hood. For 3/S, which are low, this means it will be
| impossible to detect low obstructions like too-high concrete
| wheel stops and similar obstructions. Once the hood has occluded
| the view from the windshield cameras, these obstructions will
| cease to exist.
|
| Laughable that this is being done on cars from a high-end brand,
| and that the remedy for customers who are getting worse cars
| today than you would get yesterday is to wait for these features
| to "be restored" at some indeterminate time in the future.
| aeternum wrote:
| 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.
| Qworg wrote:
| I'd love to see the convincing data RE: radar - they're using
| the same radars as every other car that has emergency braking
| from the car in front of the car that's in front of you. I've
| not heard of many "phantom braking" sessions from these other
| vehicles - I may have missed something.
| [deleted]
| peteradio wrote:
| High-end as defined by what besides price? Not necessarily
| snark, I haven't heard too much good about fit and finish...
| esotericimpl wrote:
| drcross wrote:
| When you have a several month wait list for your product,
| legions of devoted potential customers, if you're head and
| shoulders above any of your competitors, you're able to get
| away with things like this.
| hansonkd13 wrote:
| > if you're head and shoulders above any of your competitors,
| you're able to get away with things like this.
|
| The hubris of Tesla is still believing this to be the case. I
| personally cancelled my cybertruck order from lack of
| interest. better competition exists in 2022 that wasn't the
| case years ago.
| drcross wrote:
| Tesla's are outselling every other manufacturer (ICE or
| otherwise) in many countries for the last quarter and they
| are still severely supply constrained; your personal
| antidotal data point doesn't serve much purpose in the
| broader context.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Tesla's own reporting out of China from Friday is that
| they weren't able to sell all the cars they made...
| martin_a wrote:
| Tesla reached a mere 1.5% share of new cars in August
| 2022 in Germany. They are far away from "outselling" all
| the others.
| m463 wrote:
| > The parking sensors on the Tesla are really good and very
| useful.
|
| I respectfully disagree.
|
| I think their primary use case is parking. Tesla does a really
| good job with automatic parking, and it IS useful especially
| for parallel parking.
|
| But honestly, I have curbed my rims and hung up my underbody
| front spoiler on a curb and they did not help.
|
| Really there is an opportunity for cameras to protect the car
| from nearby curbs and park in the same way.
|
| But like you said, current telsa camera placement doesn't have
| enough coverage, especially in front.
|
| At a minimum, I think they should add a front camera if they're
| going to remove the ultrasonic sensors.
|
| and realistically, they should solve the ultrasonic problem of
| curbs with the cameras.
| CivBase wrote:
| > Will vehicles equipped with ultrasonic sensors have their
| functionality removed? > At this time, we do not plan to remove
| the functionality of ultrasonic sensors in our existing fleet.
|
| I really _really_ do not like the use of the phrase "our
| existing fleet" here. It heavily implies that Tesla has some
| level of ownership over the vehicles they sell post-purchase.
| olliecornelia wrote:
| Wow, how fucking stupid. Does that mean that cars that already
| have ultrasonic sensors (and radar modules) will stop using that
| sensor data?
| joewadcan wrote:
| They specifically call that out in the doc.
|
| "At this time, we do not plan to remove the functionality of
| ultrasonic sensors in our existing fleet."
| dagmx wrote:
| However they said the same for radar and removed it
| regardless after some time.
| joewadcan wrote:
| Yeah i think that's probably gonna happen here too, hence
| their "at this time" language.
| mlajtos wrote:
| 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.
| williamcotton wrote:
| An autonomous vehicle is operating on a road network designed
| for humans with eyes. If we are aiming for the kind of
| "common sense" required for parity with a human driver it
| seems intuitive that the vehicle would have sensory inputs in
| common.
| Kerbonut wrote:
| While I generally agree to get parity you would use common
| sensory input, I would hope the goal is to go beyond human
| level and navigate in for e.g. fog conditions or heavy
| rain, etc. things radar would help with. Ultrasonics
| probably don't buy them much at this point as long as they
| have good object permanence. Think about parking in a
| garage. If you can map objects to special memory adequately
| then maybe ultrasonics aren't necessary. However if the
| object is out of sight out of mind, you probably need the
| ultrasonics to help not hit it.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Cars do not use ultrasonic sensors for autonomy. They are
| for low-speed situations (such as parking) and are designed
| to give _more_ information than the driver is otherwise
| capable of gathering.
| akerl_ wrote:
| How could vision possibly replace the front bumper
| ultrasonics? Their primary function for me is showing
| proximity to objects at low speed, and many of those objects
| aren't visible to the front camera because the hood is in the
| way.
| woeh wrote:
| 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 develop
| and the reason the sensors are dropped.
| serf wrote:
| >The reason why they decided to remove ultrasonics is that
| combining contradictory signals from cameras and ultrasonic
| is not straightforward.
|
| It's fairly well known that nearly _any_ kind of sensor
| fusion 'is not straightforward'. If that's a fact that was
| just recently discovered by Tesla -- causing a recent change
| in their lineup only now -- .... well, i'll just say that it
| speaks to Tesla's confidence being greater than their
| technological prowess.
|
| I don't think that's the underlying issue here myself. I
| think this change is likely caused by an effort to get away
| from certain vendors and ship cars more rapidly.
|
| >What should have the higher precedence?
|
| again, this isn't a new problem and there are volumes of
| resources regarding that. It's a _tough_ problem, but not
| new.
| modeless wrote:
| This _would_ potentially work... if the cameras could see the
| places where the ultrasonic sensors were. But they can 't! There
| are big blind spots near the bumpers. I guess they are planning
| to just have the car fill in the blind spots by remembering what
| it saw from other perspectives? But that only works when the car
| is moving and can't account for small obstacles that can move
| unpredictably, like animals or toddlers.
|
| I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's possible to drive a car
| with just cameras, but the specific cameras that Tesla has aren't
| good enough. They need more coverage, better quality, and self-
| cleaning.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This does not make me optimistic for Tesla's future. Unless this
| is truly a temporary thing due to a supply shortage and they are
| planning to return to normal when they can.
|
| Tesla's track record is poor. They cheaped out on a few dollars
| for an IR rain sensor like everyone else uses, and as a result
| the wipers on a Model 3 are psychotic. Combine that with their
| hatred for manual controls, and I had a terrible experience every
| winter when the rains really started.
|
| Now they don't have radar, which everyone else does. AFAIK they
| still haven't got that reliable IR sensor. No CarPlay yet, which
| 99% of all other cars have. No 360 degree camera view. No
| ultrasonic parking sensors. Why again would I buy another Tesla?
| The competition has more features.
|
| The cherry on top is Tesla's demonstrated willingness to screw
| over their customers well after the sale, and not even for the
| benefit of the company. Just because they hate their customers, I
| guess. That alone is a deal killer for me now.
| LightG wrote:
| These all look like push factors and are serious enough on
| their own.
|
| But I don't even need them.
|
| I'm pulled by Hyundai. Their recent design language has me and
| I'd argue they have the better all around packages.
|
| Personally, Telsa aren't even the top dog anymore. It'll take
| time for others to see it.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Does this change make FSD required, or is it still "optional"?
| joewadcan wrote:
| FSD is just the software component, so it doesn't change
| anything. FSD is still optional
| davewritescode wrote:
| This is typical Tesla. Tell you they're giving you a great new
| feature when in reality they've made the product worse.
| sxates wrote:
| Cars delivered today without USS will not have: "Park Assist:
| alerts you of surrounding objects when the vehicle is traveling
| <5 mph." (among other features like Summon)
|
| This is the most basic feature that almost every car has had for
| years - but not your $60k Model Y. Why can't they wait to remove
| sensors until they've achieved feature parity with the vision
| only system? This seems crazy.
|
| I don't really understand the push to do everything through the
| cameras. This has caused other problems too - like their decision
| to control automatic wipers with just the camera. Which meant in
| my Model 3, the automatic wipers were erratic and ineffective
| while in every other car with a normal $5 rain sensor the feature
| worked great.
| joewadcan wrote:
| Because if the hardware isn't available they can't deliver the
| car and recognize the revenue. They can wait, but if they're
| gonna remove it anyway it lets them make more cars with less
| costs in shorter time. Seems logical if it is indeed parity.
| drcongo wrote:
| Because they're led by a megalomaniac man baby with poor
| impulse control?
| phire wrote:
| It's most likely a hardware availablity issue.
|
| They have run out of sensors, and they don't want to pause
| production until they have produced more.
| pstuart wrote:
| Seems like the "upstanding" thing to do would be to ship
| without (and credit for the omission) and offer free retrofit
| once available.
| selimnairb wrote:
| I guess they think their computer vision and AI can catch up to
| and exceed the visual processing capabilities of vertebrates
| with their millions of years of evolution. I think they are
| wrong. Multi-media sensor data fusion is the only sane path for
| the foreseeable future, in my lay opinion.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| They are wrong. A truly unbelievable coincidence coming
| across this article, I just got rear-ended by a Model 3 this
| morning.
|
| Low speed, I'd figure about 10 mph tops: A softball to end
| all softballs for AEB, and somehow I got hit with
| considerable force. We've had radar based systems that would
| have avoided this since the 2000s.
|
| I work in the self-driving space and while it's not an apples
| to apples comparison because of cost, all I could think is
| how our sensor stack would have allowed recognizing the car
| _I_ stopped for, and probably the car _it_ stopped for, let
| alone my car stopping.
|
| I've already harped on how stupid the "FSD Beta" is, but I
| quite literally the absurdity of it shoved in my face just
| this morning only to come and read this. Why is Tesla even
| being allowed to run this circus at this point?
| phoe18 wrote:
| Was the Tesla being driven in the FSD mode? or was this a
| simple human error?
| gwicks56 wrote:
| My $20k Mazda won't allow me to rear-end somebody even if
| cruise control is switched off. Neither will my wife
| Subaru.
| mukundmr wrote:
| My rear view camera regularly gets covered with dirt and grime
| after a highway run during the monsoons. The car has both camera
| and radar so that I can have reliable assistance while reversing.
| With this experience in mind I fail to see how Tesla's camera-
| only move is reliable for the use cases that they have mentioned.
| joewadcan wrote:
| Tesla cameras have sizeable overlap, so if one is obstructed it
| tries to extract the information from the others. If it can't
| then it tells you to clean the cameras. It's not perfect but
| it's better for them (Tesla) and hopefully better long term for
| all Tesla owners
| dagmx wrote:
| They have some overlap but not large enough to be reliable.
| My B pillar is regularly blinded due to their inefficient
| moisture sealing (called out in their manual instead of
| fixing it) and sunlight. It causes it to fail to see most
| things to our side
| joewadcan wrote:
| They are reliable enough to use for FSD:
| https://youtu.be/hx7BXih7zx8 so i think it's reliable
| enough for park assist, summon etc. Yeah you're def right
| about the moisture sealing... it's been hit or miss on
| production tolerances
| dagmx wrote:
| > They are reliable enough to use for FSD
|
| I disagree. regular navigate on autopilot and the FSD
| Beta are still very flakey outside of pristine conditions
| for me.
|
| At this point, I either am expecting Tesla to go ahead
| with a camera upgrade with an expensive retrofit in the
| future, or FSD will never fully realize.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| This is something that comes to mind when I see "designed in
| California" for a product that can't handle snow. Guess the
| same thing applies to monsoons!
| [deleted]
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure this is a good idea. But their removal of
| radar seems to have gone okay, so perhaps they've done their
| calibration tests and know this can be done.
| conradev wrote:
| It is crazy to me that these cars are always recording and
| streaming the result to Tesla. Sure, that data might be good for
| training self-driving cars, but also a lotttt of other things.
| fckgw wrote:
| They are absolutely not streaming the data to Tesla in real-
| time. They are storing some data on-board to retrieve later
| which makes it convenient for them to deflect blame in crashes.
| googlryas wrote:
| Yeah - there's an interior, driving-facing camera(at least in
| the model Y), which I suspect has no real purpose other than
| to send video after a crash to Tesla, so they can say "look,
| the driver wasn't staring at the road, not our fault
| autopilot crashed them".
|
| I would cover it up, but I'm afraid that it will look
| incriminating if I ever am in an accident as to why I did it.
| JoshGlazebrook wrote:
| "In the near future, once these features achieve performance
| parity to today's vehicles"
|
| Right... like how vision vehicles have parity with autopilot
| speeds and following distance? Oh wait they don't.
|
| Vision-only vehicles are still limited to a max of 85mph and 2
| car minimum following distance for autosteer while radar is 90mph
| and 1 car following distance.
|
| Texas has 85mph highways. The two car following distance
| constantly leads to cars cutting in-between you and the car in
| front of you because the gap is so large.
|
| edit: Just to clarify, when it says "1 car length", the car
| adjusts the amount of space depending on speed. So its not
| literally just one car length.
| jxramos wrote:
| > Vision-only vehicles are still limited to a max of 85mph and
| 2 car minimum following distance for autosteer while radar is
| 90mph and 1 car following distance.
|
| Is that common knowledge, what's the source of that I'm
| curious.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I can confirm first hand, owning a legacy 2018 Model S with
| front facing radar and a Vision 2021 Model Y.
| jxramos wrote:
| Aha so we're talking about a Tesla design spec constraint
| not some fundamental safety thing or computational limit or
| some other physical barrier or whatever. Interesting.
| itstomkent wrote:
| Dude if you are going 85-90 miles an hour and you aren't
| leaving _AT LEAST_ 2 cars in between you, please stay off the
| road. You should be keeping 3 seconds of distance between you
| and the car in front of you. At 90 miles per hour that 's a
| hell of a lot more than 2 car lengths.
| yupper32 wrote:
| It's possible they didn't mean at the same time. Minimum 1 in
| all situations, including going 5mph in traffic, where 2
| might be a bit conservative.
| joewadcan wrote:
| Agreed. "Parity" doesn't mean in all cases, it means in the
| majority of cases and this seems like a edge case (where 2
| car lengths isn't good enough).
| JoshGlazebrook wrote:
| Just to clarify, when it says "1 car length", the car adjusts
| the amount of space depending on speed. So its not literally
| just one car length.
| virgildotcodes wrote:
| I thought I remembered being taught in driver's ed that you
| should leave a 1 car gap for every 10mph of speed. 1-2 cars at
| 85mph is clearly not enough distance to stop.
| gopalv wrote:
| > because the gap is so large
|
| I drive with a six car gap and even that was a close-call when
| someone had a contact about 3 cars ahead.
|
| The good part is that if the car in front of you flashes the
| brake lights, that seems to trigger the braking. And some of
| the newer cars blink hazards automatically when braking hard.
|
| My Subaru is also vision only (Eyesight), which also has the
| cameras too close together (in my opinion) to detect a car
| ahead braking, but it did not slow down quickly when facing a
| stationary car facing the wrong way around (my feet went down
| before the car did anything).
|
| All of these need more parallax, at least better than a human
| to do this well. But they do react to visual cues like brake
| lights and hazards. Though sometimes, it sees a motorcycle
| nearby as a car in the distance simply due to the lack of
| parallax.
|
| "more sensors good" is not always a good thing, when the
| sensors disagree with each other. Sometimes more sensors just
| mean more corner cases and braking at bridges throwing shadows
| on the road.
|
| So just removing something feels wrong, when I don't see them
| improving the thing they're putting more eggs into.
|
| I think this is where Tesla is not credible right now, when
| they say they're improving something in the car, but it is a
| thing I cannot see, check, confirm or test.
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