What are the odds that autopilot hardware on new builds is improved from 2014 cars?

[calisnow]

It's been 18 months since Tesla started building autopilot hardware into cars. I'm thinking about what to get next - I need another Tesla.

My dilemma is a new Model S vs an October 2014 with miles on it - either one will be kept only a couple years until Gen 2 of autopilot hardware is released.

But I'm speculating that 2016 cars may have improved sensor hardware in some way we don't know about which makes the data they feed to the brain more reliable (and thus perhaps less likely to make the car make a mistake on the road) - this is pure speculation on my part - no evidence to back it up.

What do you think? Is there much of a chance that the sonar or radar hardware is more accurate/reliable in any way since the October 2014 cars? Maybe Tesla has learned techniques for better placement of the sensors in the 18 months they've been building? Any chance the camera has a more sensitive sensor which can feed higher quality data to the brain in difficult conditions such as glare or poorly marked lanes?

 

[Saghost]

It's been 18 months since Tesla started building autopilot hardware into cars. I'm thinking about what to get next - I need another Tesla.

My dilemma is a new Model S vs an October 2014 with miles on it - either one will be kept only a couple years until Gen 2 of autopilot hardware is released.

But I'm speculating that 2016 cars may have improved sensor hardware in some way we don't know about which makes the data they feed to the brain more reliable (and thus perhaps less likely to make the car make a mistake on the road) - this is pure speculation on my part - no evidence to back it up.

What do you think? Is there much of a chance that the sonar or radar hardware is more accurate/reliable in any way since the October 2014 cars? Maybe Tesla has learned techniques for better placement of the sensors in the 18 months they've been building? Any chance the camera has a more sensitive sensor which can feed higher quality data to the brain in difficult conditions such as glare or poorly marked lanes?

My guess is that they haven't made any changes. For all the Tesla is the continuous improvement company, I think they stuck with a consistent hardware set for AP, and will until AP2 (or AP1.5?) shows up - which is probably sometime next year IMHO.

Which is part of the reason I'm looking for a 2014/2015 CPO S. If only the CPO program would get sorted out. :-/

 

[green1]

There are changes, but nobody knows how substantial, or how much difference it makes.
For example, I was looking at a showroom car the other day, the camera is visibly different, instead of the relatively smooth tunnel it is ridged, it's visually a different colour (more grey, less black) and the whole module is a slightly different shape.
Why? Who knows, partial guess is to reduce glare, but beyond that who knows.
Is it better than the one on my 2014? Almost certainly. Is it enough to make a real difference considering they run the same software with the same features? Unlikely. It's probably a tiny improvement that you'd never notice in day to day use.

Basically to answer your question, yes there are improvements since 2014, but nothing that's major enough that I'd factor it in to a purchasing decision. (Unless you can find an older car with 7.0 instead of 7.1, that might sway me)

 

[CHG-ON]

I have one of the very first AP cars, delivered 9-30-14. My tunnel is grey and ridged.

 

[calisnow]

There are changes, but nobody knows how substantial, or how much difference it makes.
For example, I was looking at a showroom car the other day, the camera is visibly different, instead of the relatively smooth tunnel it is ridged, it's visually a different colour (more grey, less black) and the whole module is a slightly different shape.
Why? Who knows, partial guess is to reduce glare, but beyond that who knows.

Hmmm - fascinating. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[calisnow]

I have one of the very first AP cars, delivered 9-30-14. My tunnel is grey and ridged.

Oh, well there's a contradictory data point. Hmmm.

 

[green1]

I have one of the very first AP cars, delivered 9-30-14. My tunnel is grey and ridged.

Take a look at a showroom car to see what I mean, you'll see it looks different than yours.

 

[zambono]

The placement on the refreshed S is definitely different for the radar, but it might be the same hardware.

 

[Discoducky]

There are no substantial differences...hypothetically But if you think about it, Tesla needs to keep the hardware at parity since the software and feature set depends on it. Imagine if they had to do several iterations of validation on different hardware configurations. That would be insane!

 

[CHG-ON]

Yes, I agree with @Discoducky . If they were to incrementally update that critical HW like they do with other non critical systems, over time, their SW pushes would become so complex that the risk for failure could be huge. I would think that what they would do is come out with major 1. HW revisions, making big leaps in functionality, rather than little .1 HW revisions.

As it stands now, I certainly do not envy the inventory and production control guys with the in-line mods they make. It's got to drive them nuts. I would also think it would expensive, because how do plan your volume buys and inventory sell down when things change so suddenly? I would think that there would be a huge amount of obsolete parts being tossed out. Even after planning for service replacements. Yes, backward compatibility will help. But...And their vendors must love it!

 

[2virgule5]

Odds are slim for new AP but clearly speculations are rampant on what else could the refresh have, you guys cannot have enough ;-)