Tesla has officially removed radar from their latest cars off the production line in the US. According to Tesla, all new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles produced in May 2021 or later will no longer come with radar. Instead the cars will rely on Tesla’s vision system completely for Autopilot and safety features.
Autopilot and most safety features such as Automatic Emergency Braking and Obstacle-Aware Acceleration will still be available, but they will now only use Tesla’s camera-based system.
A camera-based system makes sense and is the long-term vision for Tesla, who has doubled down on vision several times. Other manufacturers have relied on LiDAR and other more expensive systems.
Teslas only have radar facing forward, so although it’s the most crucial direction, if Tesla plans to solve FSD then they will need to solve vision so that they can accurately determine objects and distance in all directions. Merging data from multiple sensors is often difficult, so Tesla is breaking free from their reliance on radar and focusing on the future, which is their pure vision AI.
With vision, Tesla will now be able to detect objects the same way in all directions instead of preference or “higher degree” of confidence in a certain direction, such as forward where the radar used to be.
Although Tesla’s vision system is the future, it looks like Tesla isn’t quite there yet and will have some ground to make up before it catches up to radar in all regards.
Some FSD features are currently disabled or limited for cars without radar. Summon is not currently available and the UI states that “Smart Summon will be enabled in a future software release.” Autopilot will also have some short-term limitations such as increased follow distance, a maximum Autopilot speed of 75 MPH (120 KM/H), and it will require auto high beams to be turned on while on Autopilot.
The safety feature of “Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance,” has also been turned off for the time being while Tesla continues to develop their vision AI.
It looks like removing radar from their most popular cars will also save Tesla millions of dollars per year as the radar is estimated to cost more than $500 USD. Safety always comes first, but if Tesla can maintain the same reliability with vision then this is a very good thing.
There’s no doubt that vision is the future, but the question is, did Tesla move too fast and remove radar too early? The very short-term answer appears to be yes, based on the missing features and limitations alone, but we will find out in the coming months whether it was the right decision.
If you already have a Model 3 or Model Y with radar then it will continue to function as it did before. It will continue to use and rely on radar data and all features will be available. Once Tesla advances their vision system even further and is able to make all features available there may be a time when their vision system surpasses the reliability of radar and our cars will no longer use it as well.
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Last week, Mark Ruber, an engineering YouTuber best known for his glitter bombs, released a video where he tested Tesla's Autopilot against various conditions - including the iconic ACME painted wall.
During this test, many people noted that Mark was using Autopilot rather than FSD, even though his video was titled “Can you Fool a Self-Driving Car?”. The Tesla on Autopilot went up against a vehicle equipped with Luminar’s LIDAR rig, running some sort of basic autonomy or safety software.
New Video Tests FSD
Many people were disappointed with Mark’s video and his testing methods, so several creators got to work to actually test out Tesla’s FSD.
Creator Kyle Paul over on X made a much better follow-up video, using both a HW3 Model Y as well as an AI4 Cybertruck. In a relatively unsurprising turn of events, the Cybertruck was successfully able to detect the wall, slowed down, and came to a stop. The Cybertruck was running FSD 13.2.8.
Kyle’s team did a fantastic job building the wall and testing this in a private area using FSD rather than Autopilot. On top of that - they re-tested the results several times and recorded the entire thing in and out. While Mark’s video was more for entertainment, Kyle really set out to prove what would really happen in this unlikely scenario.
Sadly, the HW3 Model Y was unable to detect the wall, and manual intervention was required in each test. While the Model Y was running FSD 12.5.4.2 rather than an FSD V12.6 build, we don’t expect this to have had a significant impact on the test - this is more of an issue with how computer vision analyzes the environment.
There are several major differences between HW3 and HW4. The first is obviously that the version that runs on AI4 is more advanced, as the hardware is capable of processing a lot more data. However, AI4 also features much higher-resolution cameras than HW3, and Tesla recently added the ability for the video feeds to be processed at full resolution on FSD V13. This could have made the difference, although it’s not entirely clear. Perhaps if HW3 gets a version of FSD V13 in the future, HW3 can be retested to see if it passes the “ACME wall” test.
Watch
Kyle’s entire video is below. It’s only 10 minutes long, so definitely give it a watch. Props to Kyle on the quick and thorough execution.
What Does This Mean for FSD?
We broke down Mark’s test - and examined all the little issues that we discovered after doing some in-depth research - you can read our analysis here.
Putting aside the issues with Mark’s testing and instead using the new results - it seems that if you were to have to fight against Wile-E-Coyote and his ACME tools with your Tesla, cartoon logic may win if you’re on an HW3 vehicle. If you’re on an AI4 vehicle, you’ll likely come to a safe stop.
Vehicle depth perception is definitely something that Tesla has been hard at work to improve - and some fairly drastic improvements came with FSD V13 that haven’t been entirely translated to FSD V12 just yet. Future versions of HW3 FSD may be able to determine that the wall is there successfully. So Kyle - if you’re reading this - don’t get rid of that wall. We’d love to see more testing in the future.
However, this entire test scenario is so out of left field… there is a good likelihood this same test would fool some human drivers as well. The most important part is that the future of autonomy will not fall for these tricks, so it's very unlikely for someone to weaponize this idea as it’d only possibly work on a small segment of vehicles.
If Wile-E-Coyote is after you, someone else may drive into the wall before your Tesla does.
Not a Tesla App
We’re not kidding, this really happened already. This isn’t a realistic scenario outside of someone trying to play an insane prank - but it’s good to know that FSD V13 is capable of dodging this.
Tesla regularly holds quarterly all-hands meetings for employees, but last night marks the first time Tesla has live-streamed the event for the public.
The meeting primarily focused on Tesla’s employees, recent achievements, and the future of Tesla. While it didn’t reveal much new information, it was interesting to see Elon Musk candidly engaging with his teams, who seem to genuinely enjoy working with him. Still, there were a few noteworthy takeaways.
As with Tesla’s Earnings Calls and other live events, we’ve put together a concise, easy-to-digest recap of everything discussed.
General Points
Work-related Injuries declined over time
Planning to expand to new markets
Cell Manufacturing
Continuing to invest in battery supply
Cheapest, lowest cost per kWh cell
The supercharger network continues to grow
Vehicle range and charging speed should match the needs of humans and their required time for breaks
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