How does autopilot behave with and without radar vs Vison?

[Mike7564]

Not sure if it’s possible to answer this, but trying to understand how my upcoming MY will behave on autopilot now that it’s going to be radar/USS-less (granted the latter is more for parking). Specifically, in fog or if there is frost on the car, won’t Vison be non-functional? Will we need to obsess about cleaning the camera glass of dust/grime? Seems like even small bits of condensation over the lens would have a major impact on performance.

Trying to see pro/con of punting on delivery on a MY, esp given rumors of a radar addition back. At least basic autopilot is the main reason I’m paying 70k for a car.

 

[uscbucsfan]

AP works fine with vision. With newer versions I experience less phantom braking than I did with radar...which wasn't always the case. It was terrible when it first released.

While FSD Beta cuts off quickly with adverse weather, I've never had an instance with rain or fog where I couldn't use AP. Even torrential rain where I couldn't see, it functioned fine.

 

[Supcom]

Not sure if it’s possible to answer this, but trying to understand how my upcoming MY will behave on autopilot now that it’s going to be radar/USS-less (granted the latter is more for parking). Specifically, in fog or if there is frost on the car, won’t Vison be non-functional? Will we need to obsess about cleaning the camera glass of dust/grime? Seems like even small bits of condensation over the lens would have a major impact on performance.

Trying to see pro/con of punting on delivery on a MY, esp given rumors of a radar addition back. At least basic autopilot is the main reason I’m paying 70k for a car.

AP always requires good camera data. So, if your cameras are blocked or degraded, AP will not function, radar or not.

 

[DCGOO]

Not sure if it’s possible to answer this, but trying to understand how my upcoming MY will behave on autopilot now that it’s going to be radar/USS-less (granted the latter is more for parking). Specifically, in fog or if there is frost on the car, won’t Vison be non-functional? Will we need to obsess about cleaning the camera glass of dust/grime? Seems like even small bits of condensation over the lens would have a major impact on performance.

The camera is warm, so in most conditions there will be no frost over the camera, especially if you leave Sentry Mode running. If the snow is coming down at 12 inches per hour, yes it's gonna get covered up. But no one is driving in those conditions.

 

[Mike7564]

The camera is warm, so in most conditions there will be no frost over the camera, especially if you leave Sentry Mode running. If the snow is coming down at 12 inches per hour, yes it's gonna get covered up. But no one is driving in those conditions.

Well, asking if it is a bit foggy or some condensation on the glass (not terribly rare for a morning commute), will basic autopilot be functional? Would radar help this? Would autopilot work in rain with Vison only?

 

[DCGOO]

Well, asking if it is a bit foggy or some condensation on the glass (not terribly rare for a morning commute), will basic autopilot be functional? Would radar help this? Would autopilot work in rain with Vison only?

Define "rain." Autopilot (Vision only) does work in the rain, however some functions degrade as conditions worsen. Auto lane change drops out early, eventually as the weather deteriorates, the system will drop out entirely, or refuse to engage. IMO, it's actually quite amazing how well it works in poor conditions. Back when I had a unit with radar, snow and ice accumulation on the front bumper frequently caused it to stop working.

 

[nvx1977]

Well, asking if it is a bit foggy or some condensation on the glass (not terribly rare for a morning commute), will basic autopilot be functional? Would radar help this? Would autopilot work in rain with Vison only?

This shouldn't be a problem. The other day, I had some fog AND i was driving into the direction of the sun. AP complained about visibility and dropped me from my set speed of 70mph to 65.

Condensation on the outside of the glass (usually a warm/humid weather phenomenon) is not a problem. Wipers fix that initially, and when you get up to speed, the glass warms up and the fog goes away. Condensation on the inside (usually a cold weather phenomenon) means you need to dehumidify your cabin air. The "auto" HVAC setting already does this and clears the fog usually in under 30 seconds.

 

[BobbyTables]

I drove today from Seattle to Portland in heavy rain. Autopilot was non functional: either refusing to engage, or limiting the speed to a constantly adjusting 50-60 miles per hour.

Previous years I made this trip in heavy rain with radar, and had no problem keeping at least the adaptive cruise portion of autopilot running. This time adaptive cruise had the same limitations as autopilot.

In good weather vision-only performs as well or better than the radar version of autopilot, as it no longer super breaks under well lit overpasses (maybe it got the radar feedback from the cars above?). But in poor weather autopilot has been much worse.

 

[ArchHamster]

Hey there! I have a vision only model x and a radar y without the radar removing update. Both fsd, and I drive both on a similar route with similar conditions but I've owned the radar Y for longer so I have more experience with it.

Phantom braking is much, much worse on vision. I experience phantom braking once a year on my y. Multiple times a drive on my x, especially on back roads. While phantom braking on NoA with vision only used to be really bad I now find navigate on autopilot vision equal or better than radar navigate on autopilot under normal conditions. Autosteer and traffic aware cruise control is basically unusable under many many circumstances on back roads with vision. With the Y on backroads, minus turns and watching out for animals or people, I can turn on autosteer and basically forget about the cars around me. With the vision only X, if someone is riding my bumper too closely then I disable autosteer because I can't trust it to not phantom brake into the car behind me. And it does really phantom brake. In my y, phantom brakeing is about 5 mph quick deacceleration, in the vision x, it's 10-20 mph, actually dangerous. It's so bad it's less stressfus to not use it on backroads under many circumstances.

I recently updated my Vision X to FSD beta. FSD beta improved it's behavior on back roads. It now does a slower deacceleration from 5-10 mph on backroads. Still uncomfortable, but if you learn to press on the accelerator when it's happening, it's much more barable. Still happens a lot and if someone is riding my tail, I still disable Navigate on City Streets (what FSD Beta is going to be called on release I believe).

I've had my X ceramic coated, I believe the windows were treated too. So water really just rolls off my windshield. With this treatment, vision autopilot hasn't forced me to disengage at night driving, or in moderate fog, or in light to medium light rain. It does not force me to turn on auto highbeams either. In moderate to heavy rain, I have had autopilot disengage with vision. Remember to clean all your cameras after it rains, and the rain drys, on your vision tesla. It makes a huge difference on the next drive. I didn't really have to worry about this on my Radar Y.

Radar Y has been amazing. It literally kept driving on the interstate in heavy night rain where I couldn't even see the lines on the road. I took a look at the virtual visualization and it had no problems. It's not smart to use autopilot like this so don't, but it was very cool that it handled it when I was out driving in such bad conditions.

Stop and go traffic is a toss up. It's never been great in either Tesla. Some updates have made it better, some have made it worse. When it's bad, it's bad. I don't use autopilot in any form in stop and go traffic anymore.

In summary, I'd say the radar Y has a confidence that it's not going to run into something which my vision X more than sorely lacks. My Y functions as you would expect, and when it does have an error, it's in the same spot everytime and predictable. My X has magnitudes more phantom braking and worse, is erradic. There's no telling when or where it will fail or for what reasons. I've driven into the sunlight just fine on AP in my vision X one day, then the same time on the same road the next day it'll suddenly disengage Autopilot and scream about the camera being blinded. Vision X is shy. If it can't see the road, it slows down massively. Cresting the top of hills is scary in the X. Also, on narrow roads with oncomming traffic, the X phantom brakes for every car passing me in the opposite direction. Not at all Ideal. The other phantom braking events are truly random without rhyme or reason.

For what you call parking functions... smart summon is so bad it should have been removed from the car years ago. Dumb summon has been pretty solid for me. However I recently had an event where the X stopped responding to my keyfob and ran intself into a curb... Remember you can emergency stop dumb summon by pressing or pulling on the door handle. Auto parking, when it works, is like a teenager trying to park for the firstime. It's embarrasing. I say when it works, because it mostly doesn't recognize parking spaces for me. It doesn't really work. Maybe 20 percent of the time in my X. 60 percent of the time in my Y. I have no idea why it visually detects parking spaces better in my Y.

If all you want from FSD is Navigate on Autopilot then it seems pretty safe... but realize you will be missing a lot of features that other cars have figured out. Inculding cruise control... Rumor has it that HD Radar may be coming back next year, and people think they saw a test tesla with additional cameras in the headlights. If so, then I can believe that USS sensors won't be needed in the future. However I think those additional cameras will be needed to fix the bad turning Autopilot does due to it's forward left and right blind spots. HD radar will be needed to return confidence to the car that it's not going to hit something when going forward. I really hope it will be offered as an upgrade for us FSD owners when it comes out. Vision is not feature parity with Radar, and if HD Radar is really next year then it never will be. I hope I'm wrong.

Let me know if you have any questions!

 

[Battpower]

don't use autopilot in any form in stop and go traffic anymore.

That is bad news. That is one of the most used features for me, and so far I haven't noticed issue with radar MS on old f/w. The same feature on my Kona requires driver acknowledgement to restart in traffic once the car has stopped for more than a second or two.

In what way have you found this to have got worse and what's the difference between your cars?

Vision is not feature parity with Radar, and if HD Radar is really next year then it never will be.

Useful perspective and comparison. I agree that moving to HD radar on new models (assuming that happens) would really seal off current development path. I think that would turn out to be a pretty big problem for Tesla.

Why drop old radar unless it's really no use? But why is it not at least as capable as similar spec radar on other cars? While may be 4-5 year old car owners might at a stretch put up with things having moved on, the latest current cars are potentially not very different hardware-wise therefore likely to be left equally sidelined by any major changes in development direction. Such a situation combined with a very confused message about TV / VO (can FSD work adequately without radar?) would imo risk Tesla's remaining credibility taking a big hit. In addition, the only way to maintain credibility forward is to deliver FSD on legacy cars whatever that takes. Having two very distinct hardware platforms being developed in parallel isn't going to help!

 

[emmz0r]

In my experience it's almost the same. Just phantom brakes and freaking out in different spots than before.
But the autowipers and auto high beams makes it net 10 times worse.

 

[ArchHamster]

In what way have you found this [behavior in stop and go traffic] to have got worse and what's the difference between your cars?

I've had a lot more time with fsd beta since writing the other post so I have more to say about FSDb vs VO vs Radar, but my opinion on VO and Radar remains the same. It was a toss up. Sometimes it would be better on radar, sometimes worse. In both VO and Radar, the tesla would leave too much of a gap between the car infront and my tesla which encouraged people to cut infront thinking I was letting them in or it pissed off people behind me. I think it's important to note that engaging navigate on autopilot and entering stop and go traffic showed a smaller gap than starting navigate on autopilot while already in stop and go traffic. It's like it takes some driving for the car to realize it's in stop and go and then close the gap.

Also, being able to reduce following distance to 1 does seem to help radar keep that gap smaller. Regardless, the gapping issue in radar and VO was a minor albeit frustrating issue. I think other drivers just assumed I was senile or high and reacted accordingly.

But the reason I stopped using autopilot in stop and go wasn't for the gapping issue, it was for the actual stop and go behavior. You see, in radared autopilot, especially, but even in VO, you would get a sense for when autopilot would misbehave and be ready to take over. Like for instance, when driving in the sun on VO or cresting a steep hill on VO or on this one part of the highway on radar and so on. The issue in stop and go, even if you are watching it, you could only respond after the error happens. The error being sudden harsh acceleration in stop and go and/or harsh braking. In my experience, it feels like the car is taunting the following car to rear end my car when this happens or brake checking the car behind me. I know from watching the driver's faces in stop and go, some have thought the latter. Both VO and radar would do this unpredictably. Sometimes it would be better with updates, sometimes worse but it was so scary when it happens that I stopped using any autopilot on radar or VO in stop and go. Now that I updated my VO tesla to FSDb, I'm not sure if this has improved on VO teslas recently.

Given this was my rule of thumb for radar and VO, it carried over to being my rule of thumb for FSDb too. However, it may not need to be anymore. I'm slowly learning to trust FSDb more and in the few times I let it do its thing in stop and go, it performed well. It still gapped more than I'd like but the gapping, except through intersections, felt consistent. Giving the impression of a cautious driver rather than a senile or high driver. Further more, the actual stoping and going was more human like and gradual. I still disengage FSDb in stop and go but for a different reason. When stopped, it sometimes points it's wheels 45 degrees to the left or right for no percievable reason and without a blinker. Honestly idk what it's thinking or what it would do if I left FSDb on but I don't want to give it a chance to do something dumb in congested traffic, so I disable, drive a bit, re enable.

I still need more experience and testing but FSDb is giving me early hope that tesla has solved stop and go autopilot behavior, at least for going in a straight line. I haven't trusted FSDb to do any turns at intersections in congested stop and go yet and because of how much harder it is to intervene on 90 degree turns with a yoke, I likely won't trust it until it performs 90 degree intersection turns consistently very well in light traffic conditions.

As for HD radar, if he does reintroduce it next year and he doesn't provide an easy upgrade path for at least his fully purchased FSD customers and continues to make FSD tied to the car instead of the account... It may be a death nail for consumer trust in tesla. As tesla owners, we put up with a lot we wouldn't put up with in other brands for the sake of the unique experiences tesla offers. I'm fine with buying fsd in full for my two teslas but admittedly, neither currently provide 15k in value for what is offered. If he plans to introduce radar and abandon vision only and old radar cars... it may be enough to turn me off the brand. Especially with how he overhyped vision only when it seemed a transparent way, thinly veiled in lies, to push the burdens of supply chain issues onto his consumers. If HD radar is coming, I hope tesla does the right thing.

 

[Battpower]

All interesting insight.

Here in the UK and elsewhere that regulators have yet to accept Tesla's testing model, the problem will be if there becomes apparently no way for Tesla to deliver a finished product. I'm not sure that under our consumer law a product can be sold that neither currently complies with regulations nor demonstrates at the very least a good faith concerted effort to deliver.

When stopped, it sometimes points it's wheels 45 degrees to the left or right for no percievable reason

I've seen this kind of behavior a few times with regular AP / FSD. Stopped at at lights behind another car and the steering wheel started rotating in small hesitent increments one way or the other.

FSDb is giving me early hope that tesla has solved stop and go

That is good to hear and I think mirrors the experience of quite a few others. Not sure if single stack (if and when it reaches non-fsd b markets) will bring similar benefits.

 

[Boza]

The worst part of radarless AP is turning on auto wipers and auto high beams. Those things never worked well for me which lead to almost not using the AP after the radar was disabled.

 

[Mike7564]

The worst part of radarless AP is turning on auto wipers and auto high beams. Those things never worked well for me which lead to almost not using the AP after the radar was disabled.

Do you mind explaining? Auto wipers and auto high beams don’t work with a radarless solution? I hope that’s not the case because that’s a fairly basic feature of a car.

I’m holding off and (painfully) forgoing the $7500/10k charging because I believe functionality of AP, etc is what makes a Tesla a Tesla. Cant see how a vision/camera solution, with the associated issues of poor visibility/frost/dirt/shadows etc will ever match a HD radar supported solution. Feel Elon’s rationale that “humans use a vision system so cars should too” is fundamentally flawed since it misses the fact that the computer in a vehicle is dwarfed by the logic/judgement/processing power/elasticity of the human brain.

 

[Battpower]

To maintain function of a vision only based system, the car needs to control headlights and wipers where as with radar based it was deemed that this wasn't needed.

That wouldn't normally be an issue except that (for some / many owners) neither auto headlights or wipers work adequately having slow response or in the case of filers, smeering up / dry wiping the windshield.

 

[Boza]

Do you mind explaining? Auto wipers and auto high beams don’t work with a radarless solution? I hope that’s not the case because that’s a fairly basic feature of a car.

I’m holding off and (painfully) forgoing the $7500/10k charging because I believe functionality of AP, etc is what makes a Tesla a Tesla. Cant see how a vision/camera solution, with the associated issues of poor visibility/frost/dirt/shadows etc will ever match a HD radar supported solution. Feel Elon’s rationale that “humans use a vision system so cars should too” is fundamentally flawed since it misses the fact that the computer in a vehicle is dwarfed by the logic/judgement/processing power/elasticity of the human brain.

As @Battpower explained, the issue is with the auto wipers/headlights that are turned on automatically when vision AP is engaged.

You should not base your decision to buy a Tesla on the promise of FSD. If that is what you are after you risk disappointment because they are still working on it (unfortunately, affecting the non-FSD experience) and the definition of success is somewhat murky - it may not match your expectations. It is a work in progress with all the caveats attached to that.

On the other hand, if you want an EV, they are still awesome/pretty mature at that, despite the recently introduced quirks (Tesla today is very different than Tesla two years ago).

 

[beatle]

I still need more experience and testing but FSDb is giving me early hope that tesla has solved stop and go autopilot behavior, at least for going in a straight line.

It's encouraging to hear that acceptable stop and go behavior may be coming back. They had it solved with AP1. I almost want to keep my 2015 because the following behavior is so horrible now on the newer systems.

 

[jeewee3000]

I can't compare radar vs Vision, but my vision only Model Y that I picked up December 3rd does quite well on auto high beams.

Auto wipers is overzealous. It will sometimes wipe and wipe thinking it is getting rain off of the front cameras, whilst the front cameras just have a smear in front of them. (This time a year whenever there is frost in the roads, and the saltwater that comes with it, the windshield gets dirty very quickly when the road surface is wet). My only solution - that I read on TMC - is to lower wiper interval to the lowest setting (I) during use of Autopilot. Autopilot needs any setting for wipers instead of "off", so you can put it on I, II, III or Auto and Autopilot will function.

However, if my windshield is perfectly clean (in front of the cameras at least) then auto wipers function fine for me.

I read the high beams can be turned off also during Autopilot but haven't tested this myself as I rarely have issues with it.

Last note, I think what is true for EU Autopilot (I did buy FSD, but of course many of those functions are not available yet over here) might not be true for FSDbeta running in the USA. Maybe FSDbeta requires "Auto" setting on autowipers and highbeams as opposed to Autopilot.