whitex
Well-Known Member
Last few days was watching my AP1 car and it sees 2 cars ahead, even under big SUV's or vans. It doesn't do phantom braking like my AP2 car on a highway, so obviously MobileEye figured it out (and with way less sensors too).
I think it might be simpler than we think. Perhaps Elon couldn't figure out how to reinvent how to use radar to match what MobileEye did, so he removed the radar instead and put it in a win column because it saved money on each car too. That is how Elon operates - a strong believer in not using "not invented here" tech, and if you can't make something work, just give up and move on. Remember how proud he was about "re-inventing" Body Side Monitoring in 2014? All those "dumb" manufacturers who put both parking ultrasonics and radar BSM in their cars. Elon is a genius, use parking ultrasonics for both, save money! The fact that it only works maybe half the time, oh well, that's a taboo topic around Elon, because it would make him look dumb to not have tested those sensors before putting them into production or stop and think why those are called "parking sensors" - a simple drive down a highway would have shown him that, well, high speed wind wooshing down the sides of the car tend to interfere with ultrasonic sensors (essentially speakers/microphones).
So this may be just another BSM or rain sensor or light sensor, Elon thinks he can do without and will fix it in software later. I'm sure it will work fine half the time, eventually with software improvements maybe even more. Oh, except with no radar it won't be as easy as with BSM or rain sensors to show that it doesn't work as well, so better for Elon.
I think it might be simpler than we think. Perhaps Elon couldn't figure out how to reinvent how to use radar to match what MobileEye did, so he removed the radar instead and put it in a win column because it saved money on each car too. That is how Elon operates - a strong believer in not using "not invented here" tech, and if you can't make something work, just give up and move on. Remember how proud he was about "re-inventing" Body Side Monitoring in 2014? All those "dumb" manufacturers who put both parking ultrasonics and radar BSM in their cars. Elon is a genius, use parking ultrasonics for both, save money! The fact that it only works maybe half the time, oh well, that's a taboo topic around Elon, because it would make him look dumb to not have tested those sensors before putting them into production or stop and think why those are called "parking sensors" - a simple drive down a highway would have shown him that, well, high speed wind wooshing down the sides of the car tend to interfere with ultrasonic sensors (essentially speakers/microphones).
So this may be just another BSM or rain sensor or light sensor, Elon thinks he can do without and will fix it in software later. I'm sure it will work fine half the time, eventually with software improvements maybe even more. Oh, except with no radar it won't be as easy as with BSM or rain sensors to show that it doesn't work as well, so better for Elon.