Tesla delivers Model 3 and Model Y in United States without radar
Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys will ship without radar in the United States from May. For Autopilot, Full-Self Driving and ‘certain safety functions’, the cars only use camera images. As a result, certain functions temporarily do not work.
Currently, Tesla cars use a combination of radar images and camera images to determine, for example, the position on the road and distance to other objects or road users. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has already indicated want to stop using radar and start using only camera images. Now Tesla is taking the first step in that direction, by supplying the Model 3 and Model Y for the North American market without radar.
Instead of radar, the cars only use camera images for Autopilot, for example. Teslas come with multiple cameras on the front, sides and back. These images are processed by the neural network of a Tesla car.
Tesla says to start with the two cheapest models, because these are the most sold. This means that Tesla can receive a lot of data over a short period of time. This allows the company to accelerate the rollout of features. The car manufacturer calls the system that only uses cameras Tesla Vision.
Tesla Vision is still under development; certain functions will therefore work less or not at all. Autosteer, where the car steers itself, is limited to a maximum of 120 km/h. In addition, a longer following distance is required, although Tesla does not say how great this following distance should be. Smart Summon, to allow the car to drive in remote parking areas, for example, and Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance may not yet work. These features will be brought to these Tesla models via over-the-air updates in the coming weeks.
The Tesla Model S and Model X models will still ship with radar hardware. Also cars not destined for the North American market will continue to get radars. Tesla ultimately only wants to make Tesla Vision cars. It is striking that Tesla is moving to a system that exclusively uses cameras; most other car manufacturers use a combination of radar, cameras and sometimes lidar for driving assistants and safety functions.
Tesla Model Y