Vision Only Limitations

[Skotty]

They will not resume radar. If anything, they may go with cameras that see in a wider spectrum eventually, but they will not add conflicting sensor inputs again.

Removing radar is not a step back, it was a step forward. They got the vision to a point that radar was holding the car back. The problem is, they didn't release the new vision stuff yet. If you watched AI day, they had added temporal and geographical inputs to give the car a short term memory based on time and position to create object permanence and remember road markings and signs for upcoming situations. Our cars still have the pre-object-permanence software and thus the limitations. Hopefully 2021.32.20 or whatever we eventually get updated to will add the AI day level of vision processing and remove limitations.

This is overly rosy. Life is all about conflicting sensor inputs, and the whole picture only gets better by adding more inputs and interpreting the whole, not reducing to fewer inputs. Just like how the multiple cameras work together to build a combined interpretation with Tesla vision, and you won't be taking a step forward by removing cameras to reduce conflicting sensor inputs.

 

[rjpjnk]

Correct. But someone posted a video from an important conference that claimed the radar data was holding them back because it was less reliable and sometimes conflicted with vision, and since then the prevailing thinking has totally accepted this without question. I have never believed this reasoning myself. More data is always better. But this has become an unpopular viewpoint.

 

[GtiMart]

I think you're confusing "radar is bad" with "less is better". I don't think anyone is saying less is better. We're just saying the currently used radar is too coarse and provides false readings. They might eventually add a better data capture device to supplement cameras, who knows.

 

[TSLY]

Because the vast majority of incidents occurred before the production change occurred. While it might be a point of concern, it could hardly be considered a contributing factor.

I didn't suggest radar removal was (or wasn't) a contributing factor.

 

[pjax_]

I can see how people who are not used to driving dense city highways will never understand how annoying it is to drive with a following distance larger than 3. It's bordering on unsafe. With so many other cars cutting in front of you, AP will be constantly braking harshly which is not good for the car following you from behind. AP is not that good yet at anticipating cars cutting in. I believe AP cannot see turn signals as of now.

My whole issue is on the Tesla's rush to remove the radar. If they are really all about safety, they should have waited until Vision has been fully rated by NHTSA (Forward Collision, AEB, ELDA etc).

BTW, "3" does not necessarily mean "3 car lengths". I believe 3 is just an arbitrary number that Tesla uses to signify following distance.

 

[mrwug]

I didn't suggest radar removal was (or wasn't) a contributing factor.

But you did express an expectation that the NHTSA would "red flag" the lack of radar.

Wouldn't be surprised if today's announced NHTSA investigation red flags Tesla's removal of lidar/radar and triggers a recall forcing Tesla to retrofit it.

If the lack of radar isn't a contributing factor and does not violate any regulatory requirements, why would they red flag it?

While NHTSA is in the business of ensuring motor vehicles are safe, their charter falls well short of questioning design decisions that are compliant with regulation and have yet to be a factor in an investigated incident. How could they justify such a "red flag" proclamation?

 

[Tha_Ape]

Every sensor has its advantages and disadvantages, the key is to leverage the advantages of all of them. Thats how things work. Thats why we have ultrasonic sensors for close up range and not purely visible. Radar goes further than vision AND give range data, visual simply infers it.

 

[rjpjnk]

BTW, "3" does not necessarily mean "3 car lengths". I believe 3 is just an arbitrary number that Tesla uses to signify following distance.

I think this is correct. Also, the following distance does seem to depend on speed (which is a good thing), so whatever "3" means it is greater at 60 mph than at 20 mph.

 

[TSLY]

But you did express an expectation that the NHTSA would "red flag" the lack of radar.


If the lack of radar isn't a contributing factor and does not violate any regulatory requirements, why would they red flag it?

While NHTSA is in the business of ensuring motor vehicles are safe, their charter falls well short of questioning design decisions that are compliant with regulation and have yet to be a factor in an investigated incident. How could they justify such a "red flag" proclamation?

Red Flag is an expression, meaning "to examine". It would be negligent of NHTSA not to consider whether the removal of radar degrades the car's safety or contributes to accidents. That's their job. Reviews like this are pro consumer and keep auto manufacturers honest.

 

[WindPower]

Removing radar is not a step back, it was a step forward.

Cars can be deadly. Auto steer and auto pilot are tools to make cars safer.

But the auto steer technology is not fully baked yet so removing hardware while still developing the auto steer technology, without showing a clear benefit, is just cost cutting. Tesla should be putting more hardware than necessary into auto steer during development, not less.

Two things to note: auto steer with vision only is not as capable as vision plus radar (examples include max speed and following distance). And the more expensive model S has vision + radar.

Sure, it’s possible that some day vision only will be perfected. But until then, removing radar is simply a cost cutting technique, not a technique to make a car safer.

 

[Jim R]

We've all read the stats about the relative safety of cars driven by people vs by Tesla software. In this thread we see examples of why FSD is safer - Using a phone while driving, taping over a camera used to detect when you are not paying attention, reducing following distance, not slowing for reduced visibility (cresting a hill). A computer can be trained. Human behaviour is another matter.

 

[macabana]

I have a MY-Vision only (no radar) and no FSD. A couple things are annoying and trying to figure out what is Vision only limitation and hopefully will be resolved with the latest release.

1. Max speed on AP is 80mph. Traveling on highways with a speed limit of 70, I set it at 78 mph. In my last roundtrip, I passed someone on AP by manually accelerating past 80mph. That caused me to lose AP for the rest of the trip. Very frustrating.
2. On rural highways the speed limit isn't always posted but defaults to ~50mph. In several cases AP limits were set to 35 mph which is annoying, but at least I can manually accelerate to faster speeds without losing AP for the rest of my trip. Is this a Vision only issue or same for everyone?
3. Nag notification seems to be quicker than I see on other youtube videos (~20 seconds.) Has anyone else noticed a quicker nag notification on Vision only Teslas?
4. The interior camera seems to be looking at me because if I'm on my phone (I know... I shouldn't be) it will beep at me right away instead of doing the typical gradual progression. I fixed that with a piece of tape, but thought it was interesting that it's clearly detecting if I'm looking at my phone.
5. The "3" follow distance is getting old too. If I were in a city environment, it would be more frustration.

The next update can't come soon enough.

Yes to all of the above and that nag update.... It happened to me on a lower speed road as well and was so frequent I was thinking I should just drive without the autopilot. Also no FSD. And the max speed.. ridiculous on a 75 mph interstate.

 

[mrwug]

Red Flag is an expression, meaning "to examine". It would be negligent of NHTSA not to consider whether the removal of radar degrades the car's safety or contributes to accidents. That's their job. Reviews like this are pro consumer and keep auto manufacturers honest.

How are they supposed to make such an assessment when there is no data regarding the efficacy of vision-only systems? Are you saying that their job is to second guess manufacturer’ design decisions based on intuition?

If so, it implies that the NHTSA understands how to solve the problem better than the manufacturers. Otherwise, how could they make such a determination with little real-world data?

 

[PackMan730]

Driving with the 3 setting in traffic gives me slight motion sickness. The car is so jerky. 4 to 5 gives me less of that feeling.

 

[rjpjnk]

Cars can be deadly. Auto steer and auto pilot are tools to make cars safer.

Hey, I love my Tesla, and definitely enjoy Auto Steer, but there is no way in the world I'd say it is safer than driving myself!
I've seen the lanes it takes around curves and how it gets uncomfortably close to traffic and guardrails when not necessary from my point of view as a human. It is great, but no where near as good as a human who is paying attention in my opinion. Now if you compare it to a human who is not paying attention, well... that's a different story.

I will let it drive, but always keep my hands and feet at the ready to take over when it gets scary or makes bad choices.

 

[TSLY]

How are they supposed to make such an assessment when there is no data regarding the efficacy of vision-only systems?

By testing and analyzing data. That's what they do.

 

[linux-works]

Correct. But someone posted a video from an important conference that claimed the radar data was holding them back because it was less reliable and sometimes conflicted with vision, and since then the prevailing thinking has totally accepted this without question. I have never believed this reasoning myself. More data is always better. But this has become an unpopular viewpoint.

if they can't handle fusion, they should fire the people who are struggling and hire those that CAN get the work done.

yes, its a harsh way to state things, but we are all tired of this BS and it seems that they are just hiring people who give up and can't handle complexity.

its not about the job, I am convinced its the people they are hiring and retaining. or the system they are immersed in.

but saying 'fusion is too hard! we give up' is lame beyond the pale.

as an engineer, I never accept this kind of excuse. if you are out of your element, that's fine; admit it and we can find people who CAN do the work.

 

[pjax_]

if they can't handle fusion, they should fire the people who are struggling and hire those that CAN get the work done.

yes, its a harsh way to state things, but we are all tired of this BS and it seems that they are just hiring people who give up and can't handle complexity.

its not about the job, I am convinced its the people they are hiring and retaining. or the system they are immersed in.

but saying 'fusion is too hard! we give up' is lame beyond the pale.

as an engineer, I never accept this kind of excuse. if you are out of your element, that's fine; admit it and we can find people who CAN do the work.

this leads me to believe that "Remove the Radar" is a business decision, not an engineering decision.

 

[Zorg]

Re. the 80mph limit. Does the system disable when accelerating in autosteer over 80, or does it disable autosteer if manually driving over 80?

 

[rjpjnk]

this leads me to believe that "Remove the Radar" is a business decision, not an engineering decision.

Of course. And that’s fine. But to listen to all the spin one might be led to believe removing the radar was intended to be an improvement.
They should just be honest and say they are moving to vision-only a little sooner than they planned due to parts shortages, and that consequently performance is going to degrade in the shot term while they work to overcome this loss of sensor.