Tesla is following an all-computer-vision approach, and in particular has recently rolled out a testing version of their “virtual LIDAR” which attempts to build a 3D representation of the world just from camera data, without necessarily being able to identify things to figure out how far away they are. Later it evolved to use both the cameras and the ultrasonics. Tesla’s autopark originally used only the ultrasonics and could not see things like lines in a parking lot - it needed to have cars on either side to park between. The currently 85mph speed is pretty decent, though the 80mph they had for a while was not sufficient on faster highways where that speed, while illegal, is still pretty common.Įven so, radars are more expensive than ultrasonics, and they were hard to find. Over time, Tesla still hasn’t restored the full 90mph Autopilot speed it had with radar, and phantom braking is still an issue.
When they pulled radar, the new cars had a much lower speed limit on Autopilot, longer following distances and many users reported a serious increase in the amount of “phantom braking” - when the car brakes for a ghost, a ghost that radar might have confirmed wasn’t there. When Tesla pulled radar it was commonly speculated to possibly be due to the global parts shortages - some alleged Teslas were sitting ready to ship except for the radar, and pulling radar fixed that. ( Once they make the software do it from cameras the decision to remove the sensors is a no-brainer.
With Tesla’s sales of 90,000 cars/month, $114 amounts to under $11M per month (or just $5M in the USA where they have started this) which is not chicken feed, but also not a lot if Tesla thinks it will restore parking assist in just a few months.
They are mainly mounted in bumpers, which does increase the cost of accidents and insurance, however.
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