this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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They originally the model S had front facing radar and ultrasonic sensors all round, the car combined the information to corroborate it's visual interpretation.
According to reports years ago the radar saved Tesla's from multiple pileups when it detected crashes multiple cars ahead (that the driver couldn't see).
Elmo in his infinite ego demanded both the radar and ultrasonics be removed, since he could drive with out that input so the car should be able to.. also it is cheaper.
Exactly, my previous car (BMW) once saved me in the fog by emergency braking for something I wasn't able to see yet. My current car (Tesla) shuts down almost all safety features when the camera's can't see anything, so I doubt it will help me in such situations. The only time my Tesla works well is in perfect conditions, but I don't live in California.
If you were driving at a speed at which the low visibility would have gotten you into into an accident due to some obstable you weren't able to see yet, you were driving too fast. Simple, isn't it?
Is it that simple? Because in my situation it wasn't, I wasn't driving very fast and the situation changed quickly. I was just cruising and following the car in front of me that I could see, but as the fog quickly got thicker, the car in front of me had to emergency brake, and as did I. My car detected that quicker than I did, for which I'm grateful.
Yes it is that simple, however I will admit that sometimes we make mistakes, and in those scenarios, assistant systems are good to have. However, fog doesn't just "explode out of thin air", and if the car in front of you had to emergency brake and that meant you had to emergency brake as well, then it means you were not keeping a safe distance.
I used to drive a lot. I see how close people tailgate even when they are not trying to be aggressive - and I am not surprised that this leads to crashes. But almost all of them are ignoring basic safety rules they were taught - at least here in Germany. And since in some countries (like the fascist southern states of northern america, formerly USA) a driver's license basically involves no education at all in most places, more accidents happen. I have driven on the highways of the pre-fascist southern states of northern america, and the rate of dangerous driving combined with less control over the vehicle is much higher than in the average European country.
While true, it's still nice that super-human senses are looking out for the driver on their behalf. Also it's nice if super-human senses allow for braking earlier and closer to graceful rather than standing hard on the brakes because of late notice.
Fog is one example, but sudden blinding glare could be another situation that could be mitigated by things like radar and lidar. Human driver may unexpectedly be blinded and operating at unsafe speed without any way of knowing that glare was coming in advance.
These things will make people more complacent and lazy, and will absolutely lead to worse drivers and more collisions
Just like government hand outs... Prohibiting accidents is communism, dyind on the grill of a SUV is a patriotic duty... /s
It can be a huge help, depending on the human factor.
If it's a 'oh, take your hands off, it's fine, take your eyes away, it's fine', then I could see that the systems replace human weakness but add their own, failing to reach a good "best of both worlds".
If it's one of the systems that watches the driver's eyes and nags if they take their eyes or hands off the task of driving while also encouraging good lane positioning and sufficient, yet perhaps uncomfortable braking in an emergency situation. Enough assistance to aid safety, still annoying enough to make people not rely solely upon them.
Challenge is that's not a very appealing promise of value. "Our system improves safety by using all this ADAS, but is annoying enough to keep you engaged!".
As you say, it's nice if there is an additional assistant, also for e.g. health emergencies.
That said: Driving assistants should only ever be that: assistants. They are not a replacement for safe and controlled driving. I know I've been an arsehole on some occasions when I had my driver's license fresh, and I got lucky that I didn't have any accidents until I learned to calm down and drive with respect for other people and animals. Just throwing that in here to say I don't consider myself a saint. But anything "self driving" should be forbidden everywhere, unless it's on rails that the vehicle can not reasonably escape even if it wanted to (i.e. trains).
Definitely a component of these safety systems needs to be actually effective driver monitoring. You have cars now doing gaze tracking, and tracking things like whether the person seems drowsy. Even while driving unassisted they will nag you if it can't confirm your attention (I would get dinged sometimes on steep ramps because my arms would block the cameras while turning the wheel, it frankly trained me to reposition hands earlier just to not get the nag).
I used the lane centering to help my kid get used to the sense of correct positioning in the lane. Of course turning it off to make them do it manually, but kind of like training wheels when the kid was tending to push it almost over the passenger line.
I'd be very curious to know how much cheaper it is. Sure, there's R&D to integrate that with everything, but that cost is split across all units sold. It feels like the actual sensors, at this scale, can't add a significant amount to the final price.
I think it's all about the timeline. Tesla gambled on cameras before AI models became usable (the company most certainly committed itself to the camera sensors a few years before it became public). By the time automated driving models became usable, Tesla had tons of camera data to capitalize on, but presumably not the corresponding radar data (or not in a consistent manner), so rebuilding a multi-sensor dataset for AI training was probably not very appealing in terms of cost and time to market.
Back when Elon made avoiding LiDAR a core part of his professional personality, it was fairly expensive. But as any tech genius can tell ya, component prices drop rapidly for electronics.
Now, radar is dirty cheap. Everything has radar. Radar was removed from Teslas. A radar sensor for my truck is $75, probably much less at scale orders.
LiDAR sensors cost anywhere from $500-$1,500 for a vehicle of this type, near as I can tell (this type being Level 2 autonomy rather than something like a Waymo. A well-kitted out self-driving vehicle has 4 LiDAR sensors).
Here is the LiDAR module currently used on the Mercedes S-Class, it's $400 used: https://www.ebay.com/itm/285816360464
It's a hideously small cost-savings in 2025 for a luxury vehicle like a Tesla. Any rational company would've reversed course after the first stationary-object-strike fatality. Tesla is not a rational company.