I know it includes ultrasonic sonar. A lot of the blind spot detection systems from other car makers use a form of radar, so I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla is using it too.
1. Go to the teslamotors.com website. 2. Click on Model S. 3. Scroll down to the section that says Autopilot. 4. Realize that everyone has known this since P85D was introduced last fall.
See that little square low down and in the middle? That's the radar. It's on all Model S made since October 2014. Yes. For one thing, lidar is far more expensive. Lidar and precision map data.
Is Lidar any good at helping the car make on-the-fly decisions in the absence of precision map data? Google's method is data intensive and relies on previously mapped areas, whereas Tesla and the rest of the auto industry are favoring solutions that more or less can respond without having this advanced database.
The little box on the front under the bumper on all autopilot cars is a phased array radar system, possibly the delphi ESR. It's been a part of Autopilot since the original release... Walter