[uk] UltraSonic Sensors removal/TV replacement performance

[LiamPope]

The USS removal IS pure cost saving, If it were just supply issues then why can you buy standalone USS parking sensor kits for absolute peanuts.
I believe Tesla believes its own hype, it feels it can do anything it wants as and when it wants to do it and customers will accept it. They clearly misread their customer base when they remove stuff with the promise vision will replace it "Soon". New customer to Tesla would accept it, but if you've had a Tesla for some time you know "soon" probably means never - like my FSD earning me money as a Robotaxi by the end of 2020, me summoning my car to come to me - and its still all coming soon. - well all except the car coming to me with summon.

I agree with most of what you say, but I'm not gonna be convinced the supply shortage isn't the main factor in today's situation of cars with neither USS nor the Vision replacement. I'm no fan fanboy whatsoever but I believe even Tesla aren't dumb enough to have pulled this one and think it's cool. I think worst case they planned to do a radar - I.e. ditch the hardware to save the dollars, but when they had the replacement ready to go. But the shortage forced their hand and they just thought feck discounts, retrofits or drop production, just ditch the sensors now and get the computer guys to hurry up.

Which in my book is slightly less bad.

The fact that cheap aftermarket USS kits remain in stock on amazon means nothing, imho - did we expect Tesla, BMW, etc to be buying them all up for their own cars? Those things are a tiny blip in the supply chain.

 

[Boza]

Tesla had to drop the prices and that is also reflected in the used cars market. There are several reasons, each in a different degree:
- EM behavior. In general, Tesla customers lean progressive; his behavior lately has been more conservative leaning. Additionally, with Twitter he did quite a few amateurish things that make people question his ability to run a large company. There is evidence that people do not buy the cars because of him.
- Interest rates. A lot of Tesla are either financed or leased. The cost of doing that goes up and the demand is softening. Additionally, the customer base is disproportionately affected by those rate hikes. There are layoffs in the tech sector and the financial sector is directly affected by the rate hikes.
- Competition is here. If you shop for an EV today you will have many more comparable choices than a year ago. The only thing that Tesla has left is the Superchargers and, possibly, the range of the high end models (questionable).
- The backlog is gone. During the pandemic people waited 6-8 months. Now, you can get the car right away.

As for the USS, cost savings is only one reason. The other is timing of the shortage. Since TV is the answer to everything (like a religious dogma) they decided to use it but were not prepared for it. Hence, the fiasco. Other manufacturers were also affected but had a more rational approach.

I feel sorry for everyone who bought a Tesla in the past ~3-4 months. They got a double whammy - no USS and higher price.

 

[Dhrucku]

With cars that have USS (took my delivery in December), will the functionality of the beeps be removed at some point rendering the physical sensors on the car useless or will functionality remain the same for those of us lucky enough to have USS still?

 

[LiamPope]

With cars that have USS (took my delivery in December), will the functionality of the beeps be removed at some point rendering the physical sensors on the car useless or will functionality remain the same for those of us lucky enough to have USS still?

They say no plans yet to disable USS. I for one hope they stick to that, and see no reason why they should ever disable USS. But doesn't mean they won't.

 

[_MJF_]

Finally, while the USS may poo their pants continuously below 2 feet or so, I don't find the nose too annoying and the lines and distance values remain useful down to cms. So absolutely not a reason to say we're better off without them, imho.

Yes, found that in the Tesla and previous cars the amount of bongs/beeps you get renders them fairly useless, but the distance estimation is great.

For me there's a need to reverse up the drive as far as possible but leave enough room between the house to be able to open the boot, so the combination of the rear camera and the distance estimation is hugely useful.

It's a bit annoying that the distance measurements are in inches, but assuming the software is developed in the USA then can't expect a non-Brit to understand that we want to use miles for long distances but metric for short measurements.

 

[Roy B]

It's a bit annoying that the distance measurements are in inches, but assuming the software is developed in the USA then can't expect a non-Brit to understand that we want to use miles for long distances but metric for short measurements.

Well, they understand that we want to use miles for distance and celsius for temperature, so we're already a third category distinct from both the US (miles and fahrenheit) and the rest of the world (kilometres and celsius).

I agree that wanting the satnav to give metres for short distances and miles for long distances probably would blow their minds but I'd settle for yards (close enough to metres) which I think is what most other brands of satnav do for the UK. TBH I effectively treat metre and yard as synonyms anyway - you have to be pretty good at estimating distance to notice the 10% difference between them.

 

[Adopado]

I agree that wanting the satnav to give metres for short distances and miles for long distances probably would blow their minds but I'd settle for yards (close enough to metres) which I think is what most other brands of satnav do for the UK.

Yes yards would be great on the nav. For general estimation purposes I agree that yards and metres can be taken as the same. If somebody gives a distance estimate of 6ft I immediately understand but those longer descriptions in hundreds of feet are meaningless even to those in the UK brought up on imperial measurements … because we always used yards for those kind of distances.

 

[Roy B]

Yes yards would be great on the nav. For general estimation purposes I agree that yards and metres can be taken as the same. If somebody gives a distance estimate of 6ft I immediately understand but those longer descriptions in hundreds of feet are meaningless even to those in the UK brought up on imperial measurements … because we always used yards for those kind of distances.

Funily enough, even though we tend to still quote our personal height in imperial measurements, no-one would ever say that they are two yards tall

 

[Dhrucku]

They say no plans yet to disable USS. I for one hope they stick to that, and see no reason why they should ever disable USS. But doesn't mean they won't.

Would be a bit odd having sensors on a car that become redundant and not work.

 

[Roy B]

Would be a bit odd having sensors on a car that become redundant and not work.

What, like radar?

The word "yet" is there for a reason - I fully expect that once the vision-based park assist is working to Tesla's satisfaction (whether or not it's working to the satisfaction of the rest of us) Tesla will disable the USS and transition everyone to the new system.

 

[Boza]

I am not so convinced that hindsight will be so kind. imho, Tesla by chopping and changing the specs of their cars, even from one car to another, is opening up a future pandoras box that is already being cracked open.

There is a reason why many manufacturing industries maintain a limited sku and many vehicle manufacturers only occasionally refresh - it keeps things simple, manageable and ultimately more cost effective. Maintaining a different spec potentially for every car will, and imho already is, going to cause issues. Some may be differences that can be handled by drop in replacements, but others, fundamentally different or worse, subtly different. We already see it now with what on paper is identical vehicles, yet they often behave quite differently - a recent example, car alarm triggering on certain vehicles. imho, Tesla is light on testing as it is, and an ever increasing permutation of parts is going to make this an ever increasing problem to try and manage, or imho, not manage in any sustainable way.

I think there may be a very good reason why many manufacturers do as they do.

One more reason why the existing USS are going away. They do not need to keep inventory of different bumpers.

 

[My2cents]

Except the bit about rear camera does a fantastic job. Clearly never been driven for 10 mins in the rain.

The mere physical properties of the car (poor manual rear visibility) makes it very difficult to reverse without feeling you are risking a bumper. Combine with darkness and rain outside and it is a nightmare. We NEVER had this issue with our 3 with USS.

 

[CWT3LR]

What, like radar?

The word "yet" is there for a reason - I fully expect that once the vision-based park assist is working to Tesla's satisfaction (whether or not it's working to the satisfaction of the rest of us) Tesla will disable the USS and transition everyone to the new system.

But Tesla being Tesla, I suspect noone inside the company knows. Only Elon gets to make those decisions.

 

[yessuz]

One more reason why the existing USS are going away. They do not need to keep inventory of different bumpers.

But all bumpers are different for different models anyway?

 

[Mullermn]

The mere physical properties of the car (poor manual rear visibility) makes it very difficult to reverse without feeling you are risking a bumper. Combine with darkness and rain outside and it is a nightmare.

Every singe van driver would be coughing up their tea at the idea of this being a nightmare.

I have had my Y all through the recent bad weather and put 1200 miles on it in that time, local and motorway driving and I can genuinely say there has been 1 occasion where the rear camera was obscured to the point of the guide lines not being very useful. However, even in that situation you still have the side repeater cameras. Look at your space as you approach it, pick a guide mark for where you want your car to be and use the side cameras (and mirrors) to align with it.

And yeah all the commentary about how this is not a problem Tesla should have caused is very valid, no disagreement there, but the car is very far from being hard to park.

I think people are massively overstating how ‘easy’ it is to park an older/smaller car and we all managed to do that as brand new drivers without crashing every day.

The number of posts on here that seem to regard USS as essential or a safety feature has been a real eye opener about the competence/confidence of the average motorist.

 

[doats1]

Every singe van driver would be coughing up their tea at the idea of this being a nightmare.

I have had my Y all through the recent bad weather and put 1200 miles on it in that time, local and motorway driving and I can genuinely say there has been 1 occasion where the rear camera was obscured to the point of the guide lines not being very useful. However, even in that situation you still have the side repeater cameras. Look at your space as you approach it, pick a guide mark for where you want your car to be and use the side cameras (and mirrors) to align with it.

And yeah all the commentary about how this is not a problem Tesla should have caused is very valid, no disagreement there, but the car is very far from being hard to park.

I think people are massively overstating how ‘easy’ it is to park an older/smaller car and we all managed to do that as brand new drivers without crashing every day.

The number of posts on here that seem to regard USS as essential or a safety feature has been a real eye opener about the competence/confidence of the average motorist.

Not everyone here is a van driver or has even driven a van, and from experience it's much harder to manoeuvre a van than it is a standard car. So if you don't drive one regularly you won't pick up that ability. To be honest, the state of most vans on the road indicate that even some van drivers are terrible at manoeuvring anyway. Also, van drivers probably don't care about scuffs and small dents.

I agree that USS isn't essential, and yes some car owners probably take convenience features for granted without realising how bad they are at driving without them. But if you've paid good money for your car and you want it to remain in its best possible condition, then USS helps with that significantly.

 

[Durzel]

Tesla has been so successful profit wise because they have no legacy ICE vehicles to maintain, The vehicle was designed as pure EV from the ground up - no conversion of an existing platform. They also risked everything they had - which was brave of them. The early cars they had lots of build quality issues though.

The USS removal IS pure cost saving, If it were just supply issues then why can you buy standalone USS parking sensor kits for absolute peanuts.
I believe Tesla believes its own hype, it feels it can do anything it wants as and when it wants to do it and customers will accept it. They clearly misread their customer base when they remove stuff with the promise vision will replace it "Soon". New customer to Tesla would accept it, but if you've had a Tesla for some time you know "soon" probably means never - like my FSD earning me money as a Robotaxi by the end of 2020, me summoning my car to come to me - and its still all coming soon. - well all except the car coming to me with summon.

The only reason the price of their cars have dropped is because of a lack of waiting customers - why else would they do it? unless you believe Tesla are just being nice. So nice in fact - the decision to drop the price was taken before they announced the free supercharging for customers to pick up their cars early before the end of 2022 and a week or so later announce price drops by thousands of pounds - that is morally wrong.
I hear the argument that if the price increased and a customer had an order in then they would expect their price to be honoured - and rightly so, but when Tesla had made the decision to reduce the price by up to 13% on some models that wasn't a decision taken on a whim - or overnight - that decision had been confirmed prior to the incentive to get customers to take delivery of their ordered cars by the end of the year and as a sweetener 6000 free supercharging miles.
The actual taking of delivery within Q4 was in itself good for Tesla for total sales figures for the year, but, within weeks an up to £8000 drop in price announced and those who took early delivery have been shafted - do you think they will become future customers of Tesla?
Tesla, if they wanted to do the right thing would refund all those that had a January delivery date that were incentivised to take delivery in 2022, but i suspect that wont happen.

Penny pinching or "Value Engineering" has become a prime driver for Tesla since late 2019 - prior to this they produced the best they could, and sure, it had issues, but they were trying. Then the removal of stuff started and that pace has increased.
There is a saying "Once bitten twice shy"

Great post.

I particularly like it when I hear people champion these latest price cuts as Tesla "driving down the cost of EVs in line with its vision of sustainability". That must be why they're still aspirationally priced, whilst manufacturers like MG are bringing out EVs at half the price.

Also - what does that statement say about what they were doing before the price drops? Without realising it people who repeat this dogma are neglecting to observe the fact that Tesla have previously been raising prices constantly while they could and while the market would bear it (like many profit seeking entities). There was no altruism back in the times when money was cheap and margins were (and still are) insane. Where was the "driving sustainability" mission statement then?

So yeah - I can give credit to Elon and Tesla for showing that EVs could be viable replacements for ICE cars. They probably hastened the development of EVs by other manufacturers by a good 5 years. That buys a lot of goodwill from me BUT I'm not going to just straight up ignore reality and suggest that the Tesla of today isn't seeking profitability and volume above all else, and the Tesla of today - as you have remarked - seems more concerned about increasing their margins as much as possible, even by what must surely be trivial amounts. How much reputational damage is being done relative to saving ~$113 per car? It sortof reminds me of Elon selling Twitter's old office furniture to contribute towards $1.5b of debt interest payments.

 

[Zilla91]

Every singe van driver would be coughing up their tea at the idea of this being a nightmare.

What a bizarre and completely irrelevant comment to make.

 

[Boza]

But all bumpers are different for different models anyway?

Within a model line. For example, for M3 they have to maintain inventory for cars with and for cars without a sensor. I think the rule is support for 10 years after manufacturing date. So, if they disable the USS they have to maintain only no USS bumpers. Side note: those things will probably sell even more after the USS are disabled.
(The post suggested that it was not as simple as drilling holes; there were support structures molded in the bumper)

 

[yessuz]

Within a model line. For example, for M3 they have to maintain inventory for cars with and for cars without a sensor. I think the rule is support for 10 years after manufacturing date. So, if they disable the USS they have to maintain only no USS bumpers.
(The post suggested that it was not as simple as drilling holes; there were support structures molded in the bumper)

or, they disable uss but use the same bumper as there is nothing to change, just to cover holes