Tesla.com - "Transitioning to Tesla Vision"

[gearchruncher]

Also, if you believe AP is safer than a human- "superhuman" in Elon terms....
Removing features, even for a month is REDUCING SAFETY from your baseline. To save money.
Not what a safety centric company would do.
But then again, if you know AP is actually more dangerous than no AP, or that summon is a dangerous party trick, this is actually increasing safety

 

[verygreen]

Having gone through the AP2 migration, this is really bad news for new owners. Unless @verygreen says they have been collecting data for this for a while, seems like a hail Mary to save delivery numbers for the quarter. Was waiting for tax credit and updated headlights to take delivery on my Y, but now I'll get no radar and probably a crappy AP experience until they flush out all the issues. Also not sure how they can deal with fog and heavy rain without radar.

I also believe we are going to relive ap1->ap2 transition with this. The nebulous "short lived" feature reduction and data analysis just from the new cars because of course all the hundreds of thousands of existing cars and the data collected from them in the past years is suddenly not good enough?

That said, I suspect you can retrofit a radar into a new car, update the gw config and gain all the features back. In fact I know some salvagers with quite some accumulated stashes of radar units.

 

[gearchruncher]

Well, this is all speculation for now. Let's see how these no-radar cars perform.

No it's not. They won't do AP over 75 MPH, smart summon, or stay in their lanes automatically. This is not speculation, this is exactly what Tesla is telling us. They have FEWER FEATURES than radar equipped cars.

Aren't we always saying that all Tesla ever owes us is what's on the website on the day you buy? That any future promise never needs to actually occur? We need to be consistent here.

 

[powertoold]

I also believe we are going to relive ap1->ap2 transition with this.

The major issue with the ap2 transition was the limited max speed. It was around 45-50mph, making it useless for highway use.

The max speed here is 75mph.

 

[Iain]

Because you've never used it, it doesn't matter?

Isn't interesting that Tesla had to take out the one current feature that looks closest to City FSD, which is driving around a complex environment with nobody to take over? That radar was so fundamental here that they can't even try it anymore?

FYI, Tesla's own numbers as of last year showed only 200,000 automated lane changes but 1,200,000 smart summon sessions.

These numbers seem from a world I don’t live in. I’ve used Smart Summon once ( btw it worked great in the Texas ice storm) yet I use automatic lane changes daily.

 

[Rebel]

Well, this is all speculation for now. Let's see how these no-radar cars perform.

Ill let you know when I pick mine up Thursday... +/- they added a new advance camera system for them to actually pull this off?

 

[JHCCAZ]

I didn't really know what to make of all these developments today, until the post where FloridaJohn quoted a BMW customer on Reddit who reported BMW's struggles with their radar module supply.

Of course we don't know whether Tesla has this exact same problem, but if so it helps to explain why they would pull the trigger on radar-module removal now, instead of waiting the decent interval for a more seamless overlap-transition to new Vision-only software.

One guess then, is that the prior plan concentrated on Vision-only as applied to City Streets, v9 and all that, but less immediate effort was assigned to legacy Autopilot modes including standard AEB & FCW features, as well as legacy optional highway AP with NoA. All those updates could be planned for future back-fill updates to Vision-only on a sensible timeline.

Reasonably speculating, we then consider that a radar module shortage, unsolvable (at all or at reasonable cost) by the procurement/logistics folks, became recognized as a major problem at least a couple of months ago. Elon thought OK, then we just accelerate and bank on the radar-less strategy we were planning anyway.

Marketing maxim: If you can't fix it, feature it.

So he amps up the tweets about impending Pure Vision, not a lie since he wants it anyway, but now the margin for error- or delay - becomes very thin.

They build on, without radars, and put big pressure on the Vision software, suddenly including a bigger scope to complete the radar-less replacement of legacy AP features that now cannot wait.

And that is my theory of the logic (though what looks like illogic) of the present situation.

 

[gearchruncher]

These numbers seem from a world I don’t live in. I’ve used Smart Summon once ( btw it worked great in the Texas ice storm) yet I use automatic lane changes daily.

Right from a Kaparthy video.
It may all matter what they classify as an "automated lane change".

 

[powertoold]

they added a new advance camera system for them to actually pull this off?

I doubt they changed the cameras. They would have hyped it up if they did, lol.

Congrats if it's your first Tesla. They're amazing to drive, just be extra careful with your rims, easy to curb rash.

 

[gearchruncher]

The max speed here is 75mph.

This table shows that the reported average normal driving speed was nearly 66 mph on interstates posted with 55 mph speed limits, about 74 mph on interstates posted at 65 mph and almost 78 mph on interstates that are posted at 70 mph.

41 states have speed limits 70 MPH or above. 6 states have 80 MPH speed limits.

 

[dailo]

The major issue with the ap2 transition was the limited max speed. It was around 45-50mph, making it useless for highway use.

The max speed here is 75mph.

Won't be very useful if it is constantly phantom braking. After they bumped up the speed limit in AP2, it was still pretty bad. I'm sure it will get better, I just have doubts it will be in the specified timeline.

 

[qdeathstar]

Well, this is all speculation for now. Let's see how these no-radar cars perform.

We know that for at least a little while, they will for 100 percent certainty, perform worse than car with radar.

 

[gearchruncher]

Fun fact: Tesla still lists smart summon and lane departure avoidance as features on /support/autopilot and /autopilot, but no longer lists "smart summon" on the checkout page. They no longer owe people smart summon, but I'm not sure where a perspective customer is supposed to recognize that they won't get AP above 75 MPH or lane departure avoidance like they may have experienced during a test drive.

 

[jcperform]

Until yesterday radar played "an essential role in detecting and responding to forward objects."

I'm not saying that with better neural networks it's not possible to get more information out of camera images than what was possible in the past, but radar definitely helps. Those familiar with computer vision will say that 3D sensors (radar, lidar) can make a huge difference in 3D sensing. Especially when visibility is bad.

Pure vision alternatives are: computational stereo (need at least 2 cameras with some distance from each other looking at the same object), contextual cues (lane markings, shadows, etc), object recognition (you can estimate distance and pose from size if you know what the object looks like), etc. These work most of the time but they are significantly more difficult to do accurately without a 3D sensor helping.

I think the removal of the radar is a due to a combination of supply issues and cost, and not because it's not helpful. Though I'm sure they are working really hard on vision to try to recover as much of the lost information as possible. Of course Tesla will never actually admit this.

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I'm not really processing these vision vs radar discussions, the driver of a GROUND based vehicle must base reactions on sight distance right ? Pilots please jump in here.

 

[verygreen]

The major issue with the ap2 transition was the limited max speed. It was around 45-50mph, making it useless for highway use.

The max speed here is 75mph.

that's still mostly useless. even with 90mph you end up one of the slowest cars on the road in the south, at 75 that's even below speed limit in Texas.

 

[run-the-joules]

Fun fact: Tesla still lists smart summon and lane departure avoidance as features on /support/autopilot and /autopilot, but no longer lists "smart summon" on the checkout page. They no longer owe people smart summon, but I'm not sure where a perspective customer is supposed to recognize that they won't get AP above 75 MPH or lane departure avoidance like they may have experienced during a test drive.

View attachment 666302

There is… a thread… where the subject of the checkout process descriptions and the importance thereof features heavily. I look forward to watching the screaming match that comes out of this.

 

[jcperform]

Having gone through the AP2 migration, this is really bad news for new owners. Unless @verygreen says they have been collecting data for this for a while, seems like a hail Mary to save delivery numbers for the quarter. Was waiting for tax credit and updated headlights to take delivery on my Y, but now I'll get no radar and probably a crappy AP experience until they flush out all the issues. Also not sure how they can deal with fog and heavy rain without radar.

Do you actually drive in fog and heavy rain ? Just saying.

 

[jcperform]

that's still mostly useless. even with 90mph you end up one of the slowest cars on the road in the south, at 75 that's even below speed limit in Texas.

I remember as a kid being told something like " if everyone was jumping off a cliff would you ? "

 

[run-the-joules]

I remember as a kid being told something like " if everyone was jumping off a cliff would you ? "

BASE jumpers: "yes".


But joking aside, what's more likely: Everyone else simultaneously went crazy and is jumping to their death, or I missed something?

 

[jcperform]

I’m waiting on a Y. I can deal with most of the limitations, but no collision avoidance? That kinda sucks.

If any vehicle feature has saved you a collision you might be exceeding your capabilities as an operator.