Tesla replacing ultrasonic sensors with Tesla Vision

[Boza]

Tesla is pursuing Vision Only as their philosophy for the future of ADAS. We've known this for some time, and when radar was removed from cars, it further cemented the trajectory. With the removal of ultrasonics from the cars, the company is completely on vision going forward.

Tesla cars are still excellent EVs, and at one point were the only game in town. The landscape has changed recently, with new EVs coming out from established companies and new, innovative companies as well.

If you like Tesla, and agree with their Vision Only philosophy, then you have voted with your dollars. If you think that ADAS features demand a sensor fusion with multiple types of sensors, then Tesla is not for you.

Tesla has a large head-start on ADAS features, but other car manufacturers are coming with large arrays of sensors (like NIO), and will no doubt give us ADAS functions on par with Tesla in the near future.

It's an exciting time for EVs and ADAS, and we get to be a part of it. Do your research, explore what's coming, and vote with your dollars.

This is all great and maybe TV will be better at some point in the future. Let them remove whatever sensors they want, cut the wheel in half, put square wheels, whatever they want… but in the new cars. Then we have an informed buyer decision.
When I bought the car I didn’t know they planned to remove important functionality (that I paid for) until some uncertain time in the future. They should have parity between current state and whatever you plan for TV and then start removing redundant stuff.
What they do now is a classic “bait and switch”.

 

[S100D]

Tesla first stopped producing some Tesla cars that had radar and now they are getting rid of the ultra sonic sensors. If you are in a fog and a car stops in front of you, Telsa Vision will not see the car and you will have an accident. Yes you can slow down but unless you stop it is much less safe to use Tesla Vision versus continuing to have radar and sensors.

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla first stopped producing some Tesla cars that had radar and now they are getting rid of the ultra sonic sensors. If you are in a fog and a car stops in front of you, Telsa Vision will not see the car and you will have an accident. Yes you can slow down but unless you stop it is much less safe to use Tesla Vision versus continuing to have radar and sensors.

If you can't see the car stopped in front of you, likely with lights on, you can't see the lane lines ahead to be able to navigate the road. (And USS would be of no help in your hypothetical situation.)

 

[Boza]

The Lucid Air GT is currently the range king. 516 mile EPA, with an actual 70MPH highway range of 435.

I already have one beta car. No, thank you!

 

[Dewg]

The only reason I keep my current car is the drivetrain. No one else is at 400mi+ range. Otherwise, that would have been the shortest ownership I had. I am fed up with constantly be worried what crazy idea they would spring on me. I love cars but I also have a life.

I wish I knew how to help you, but sounds like you're stuck with a car that makes you unhappy, which saddens me. I wish you had a better experience. My car came with radar, which was a phantom braking nightmare as my freeway drives are loaded with overpasses and large freeway signs. Once I got into FSD Beta, and radar was disabled for vision only, my PBs were reduced. Subsequent updates have improved things more and now my PBs are minor and much less frequent. The trade-off is 5MPH and 1 on following distance, which does not bother me, as I don't drive 90MPH personally, and 5-10 feet off someone's rear (tailgating) at freeway speeds is just not good driving for me - I personally set my distance to 7.

Having seen AI Day, and seeing what the new occupancy network can do at short distances and slower speeds, down to 1cm blocks (which parking fits right into), I'm pretty confident that vision will take over summon and autopark well.

Many people are worried that ultrasonics will be removed immediately from their cars, but that's just a guess. Radar was physically removed from new M3 and MY in May 2021, and MS and MX in Feb 2022. Tesla didn't disable radar in software for all cars until September 2022 (unless you were on FSD Beta, in which case it was disabled when you were accepted into the program). If the same pattern holds, ultrasonics will be disabled in existing cars in probably 6 months or so. And your autopark and summon will continue working until then, when vision will take over. The only people truly affected are new buyers who will not have ultrasonics and autopark and summon will be disabled for them until vision takes over. How long will that take? We don't know, but if radar to tesla vision is any indication, about 2 months (that was how long it took for degraded features to start returning).

Try to stay positive and not fret - the world isn't ending today.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Those of us with HW2.5 will always have radar and ultrasonics
The good news is that autopark is such garbage that it shouldn’t be hard to do better with Tesla Vision. It will be interesting to see if they can get acceptable performance at the only thing ultrasonics are really useful for, pulling close to a flat featureless surface in front of the car.

 

[momo3605]

Those of us with HW2.5 will always have radar and ultrasonics
The good news is that autopark is such garbage that it shouldn’t be hard to do better with Tesla Vision. It will be interesting to see if they can get acceptable performance at the only thing ultrasonics are really useful for, pulling close to a flat featureless surface in front of the car.

I think you're right. Autopark should be doable with vision alone. Park Assist is the main feature where I'm concerned the cameras don't have enough visibility below bumpers (and this is available to everyone, not only those with FSD/EAP package)

 

[Dewg]

I think you're right. Autopark should be doable with vision alone. Park Assist is the main feature where I'm concerned the cameras don't have enough visibility below bumpers (and this is available to everyone, not only those with FSD/EAP package)

Don't ultrasonics have a height requirement? I thought I read they can't see anything shorter than 6 inches, perhaps missing parking curbs.

 

[Boza]

Thank you! Unfortunately, my experience with Tesla has been getting worse as time passes - V11, then radar, now USS (leaving the SC experience aside - it is a whole another story). It is not a single thing, it is the trend that I am worried about - every single update has made the car worse. I bought an EV; AI was a side effect. Now, the side effect is spoiling my EV experience. I just hope that they do not come up with something even crazier that will push me back to ICE. I would hate that!

I am OK with them removing/postponing features in new cars; I am not OK with them removing features from a product that I own with a vague promise that they will achieve parity sometime in an uncertain future. If V11 and radar are indicators they will disable USS well before TV achieves parity. Had they implemented parity then removing the radar would have been a non-event. If they cannot handle this can they just leave my car alone? Let me do the tradeoff between having a radar and TV. For a sw-based car Tesla is super limited in terms of optionality.

Frankly, I do not care about the 5mph reduction in speed. Follow up distance is more of a problem, especially in stop-and-go traffic when people will constantly cut you off if you follow in anything less than 1. Auto wipers and auto high beams are a major issue, to the point that I will be forced to not use AP/FSD because of them. They simply do not work. Interestingly, Tesla focused on removing radar and USS instead of fixing something so basic that has been solved through dedicated sensors decades ago. Isn't that a hint that TV is more of a religious pursuit rather than a practical solution?!

I also watched the AI day and I have mixed feelings about it. What ON can do is interesting but they used very simplified, almost ideal environment, to show it capabilities. Which means that we will be the beta testers with no way to provide feedback (as usual).

What they achieved with the robot is impressive, if we consider that they have been working on it for about a year. However, they have a long way to go

 

[Boza]

Don't ultrasonics have a height requirement? I thought I read they can't see anything shorter than 6 inches, perhaps missing parking curbs.

Yes, they do. I scraped my front spoiler a few times on those parking spot barriers and low curbs. However, the front camera position makes its blind spot bigger so I would guess that they would rely on the ON for that. The car sees the curb when it is far and estimates the position when it is in the blind spot. Not sure how well would that work with the low res cameras on the legacy cars.

 

[Dewg]

Yes, they do. I scraped my front spoiler a few times on those parking spot barriers and low curbs. However, the front camera position makes its blind spot bigger so I would guess that they would rely on the ON for that. The car sees the curb when it is far and estimates the position when it is in the blind spot. Not sure how well would that work with the low res cameras on the legacy cars.

Once the network detects it, and then it dips below the hood, it can precisely keep track by the movement of the wheels.

 

[Skotty]

Yeah! Dam that company trying to make money and profit! Stop taking away things that are proven and stop that innovating. And tell Apple I want the 40 buttons and plastic pencil back on my phone! Those stinken profiteers!

Yes, as a consumer, I care about the product working well for consumers. Advancing profitability, a possible reason for eliminating USS, does not excite me in any way when USS works really well for parking and the company is already profitable. Tesla has been making changes for profitability, and some of that has been prudent and necessary, but some of the changes have made the product worse, not better. For example, the complete lack of any options on the cars like they had in earlier years has been worse for consumers.

New Coke was an innovation. Some people were concerned about it prior to it's release.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I'm not too concerned about the loss of ultrasonic sensors as in my experience they rarely have any benefits.

The don't have enough precision to be useful for tight parking in a garage. Heck with my Model S I would go down to the minimum and then I knew I just needed a bit more. Haha.

Any usefulness in telling you about something coming up in the surrounding is outweighed by the annoying beeping.

With Tesla specifically all the Ultrasonic based stuff like Autopark, Summon, etc really wasn't that good.

In my Rivian I wouldn't miss them either because usually I'm relying on the 360 downfacing view for parking.

It has Ultrasonics, but for the most part they're annoying.

The biggest downside of Tesla isn't the removal of features, but the reluctance to add features that other cars have. Things like down facing 360 degree view, rear-cross traffic alert, proper blind spot monitoring, etc.

 

[Dewg]

Try to remember that while profitability is a byproduct, the global supply problems are the reason the sensors are being removed so that Tesla can keep delivering cars without massive delays. The rest of the industry is suffering too and many manufacturers are also removing their sensors and deactivating their parking systems for new vehicles. The difference is that other companies are saying why they are removing the sensors (shortages), but Tesla is spinning it as a net positive. No one knows how it will play out when TV takes over. So many are Nostradamusing the hell out of this without facts or inside information from Tesla engineers, just conjecture. Let's wait and see how this goes.

 

[Mardak]

I'm relying on the 360 downfacing view for parking

What are you actually looking at in the 360 downfacing view? Assuming predictions and object permanance are accurate to a few inches, I would think Tesla could make a top-down visualization that shows "vector" 1) curbs/objects that you don't want to run into and whether you're too close 2) short objects like parking stops that the car knows is safe to pull over and 3) painted lines to align in a parking spot. A visualization like this would probably be practically more useful in most cases except for maybe trying to position based on things like a shadow on the ground.

 

[ThomasD]

The only reason I keep my current car is the drivetrain. No one else is at 400mi+ range. Otherwise, that would have been the shortest ownership I had. I am fed up with constantly be worried what crazy idea they would spring on me. I love cars but I also have a life.

You can get 400+ miles of range out of you car

 

[stopcrazypp]

Don't ultrasonics have a height requirement? I thought I read they can't see anything shorter than 6 inches, perhaps missing parking curbs.

It's 8 inches (20cm) according to the manual (which has been updated to remove references to USS), but I checked the old one and it's the same.
Model 3 Owner's Manual | Tesla

In my experience, the USS parking assist has never worked for curbs.

 

[Boza]

Try to remember that while profitability is a byproduct, the global supply problems are the reason the sensors are being removed so that Tesla can keep delivering cars without massive delays. The rest of the industry is suffering too and many manufacturers are also removing their sensors and deactivating their parking systems for new vehicles. The difference is that other companies are saying why they are removing the sensors (shortages), but Tesla is spinning it as a net positive. No one knows how it will play out when TV takes over. So many are Nostradamusing the hell out of this without facts or inside information from Tesla engineers, just conjecture. Let's wait and see how this goes.

I understand that reasoning (even with Tesla’s spin on the matter). My issue is with removing features from the “legacy” cars before the replacement is ready (if ever). There is no shortage of USS in my car - they are working perfectly well at the moment.

 

[MP3Mike]

My issue is with removing features from the “legacy” cars before the replacement is ready (if ever). There is no shortage of USS in my car - they are working perfectly well at the moment.

It is a good thing they aren't doing that.

 

[Dewg]

I understand that reasoning (even with Tesla’s spin on the matter). My issue is with removing features from the “legacy” cars before the replacement is ready (if ever). There is no shortage of USS in my car - they are working perfectly well at the moment.

When do you think they're going to remove from your car? Radar wasn't removed from existing cars for 16 months for 3 and Y and 7 months for S and X.