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New Tesla Model S Has 2nd Triple Cam For Autopilot & Pedestrian Noise Unit
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Super_Popular
Well-Known Member
2virgule5
Member
Afraid of the answer, so we can keep dreaming ;-)
benemac
Member
They may not want anyone to know about newer cars having a possible AP update. I don't think it would make sense to show off a car with AP 2 before any announcement. Once it's out, they really don't need to change out the cars. Just mentioning that the car now includes updated hardware would be sufficient until they can change them out later. I'm holding out on any new order until June. We'll see if he announces anything cryptic leading to the Stockholder Mtg on the 31st. Sometimes he says something that makes us wonder.
2virgule5
Member
Could also be that they are moving old parts before fitting the new ones while the wiring is there. It's likely coming this year but maybe not everything is in sync with the refresh (center console and new wheels came a bit before, 75D just after, AP 1.5 in just few weeks?), so we can keep having nightmares :-(
Kind of bummed the schematics only showed the triple cam, not a full suite of cams for sides and rear. It might be only a step towards the full autonomous setup. It may be they need to wait for the computing hardware to catch up before they can handle additional cameras.
I don't think it will happen until the fall. Yes, it will happen sometime, but just too soon.
Aside from the redundancy discussions, you might not need anything else. The fisheye should be wide enough to clear the other sides of traffic lights and for way stops.
You clearly need a rear facing radar or camera to know when lane changes are safe - but the Model S already has a very good rear facing fisheye camera, so if the new system does object recognition off of a fisheye, they'd only have to change the routing to pass the current backup camera data through the AP module...
2virgule5
Member
At least let's just hope the wiring is already there and the possibility to upgrade at a reasonable cost is preserved. I already missed AP for few months with my 2014 S, I'm not in a mood to miss again the next evolution of AP. In term of new capabilities this doesn't look like full autonomy though. Stop signs reading (but is it ready for 100% success rate?) and auto lane change maybe, what else could it bring?
If it has enough resolution and enough processing power (and the rear camera is routed to AP,) I don't see much it couldn't do - it should have enough sensor reach and coverage to handle almost everything. The ability to understand things off to the side forward and approaching in the rear are the main limitations of the current system that I've read about.
An upgrade should be more practical for this, especially if the AP 1.5/2 system adds only the new front triple module or that plus the rear camera routing - that should only require the new module (and possibly a new mount or even windshield?) since the cameras and AP processor are apparently all in that box. The original AP required major changes to several car systems, read about wk057's experience upgrading a car to understand how extensive it would have been.
I'm hoping that all of this news now means there's a good chance it'll appear on my X when it shows up (I don't have a real delivery estimate yet, before I confirmed it was saying July, but afterwards I haven't gotten anything yet so I'm hoping late July or early August.) As you say, I'd hate to know it was coming two months later when I took delivery, especially if they don't offer an upgrade.
MSullivan
Member
I think as soon as my Model S arrives I am never coming back here and removing Tesla from Google News. Head in the sand will save me big dollars. Just kidding (sorta).
Could Tesla be setting up autoplot to save actual video clips? Perhaps the last ten seconds would be recorded and saved when there is an "event".
I'd be very surprised if Tesla doesn't already do this. We know that they have and keep "black box" accelerometer data (like all other modern cars.)
AZ Desert Driver
Rare combination
benemac
Member
Us too - by a few days. I won't let that happen again. And we're seriously looking to upgrade once we know something better is coming. I hope June has new announcements from Elon.
Infrared covers a wide range of things. If you read the early posts in this thread, it actually sounds like the current camera and the longest range of the triple set may both have near infrared sensitivity (the range that night vision goggles work in, PV panels absorb, and chlorophyl reflects.)
Without a photointensifier tube or IR illumination I'm not sure near IR is of much help in the dark, though (most of the cameras that use it include IR LEDs to light the subject, and of course NVGs have very sophisticated photointensifier tubes that multiply the light by several orders of magnitude.)
They'd have to use a very different approach for a real thermal camera, because normal glass is opaque in that frequency range - you can't put a thermal camera behind the windshield and get anything useful from it.
Most cars that have thermal cameras put them in the middles of the grill region - depending on the field of view needed, recessing one in the slot beside the T would be the obvious choice for the post facelift S and the X if Tesla went that way (there's no evidence suggesting they will to date.)
I'd love to see a thermal camera included as a user viewable display (mostly for my own amusement, a little to see deer in the distance first,) but in practice I'm not sure it's particularly useful to AP - it'd be great for finding deer and pedestrians, but the radar can already see those just fine.
Super_Popular
Well-Known Member
Do you think that Tesla will make an "announcement" about new AP or just start rolling it out?
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