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Tesla has advised customers it is now building new Model 3 and Model Y cars without ultrasonic sensors (USS) as the company moves to its Tesla Vision camera and software sensing system for Advanced Driving Assistance Systems.
The company had earlier removed radar sensing from Model 3 and Model Y in 2021 and Model S and Model X in 2022.The removal of 12 different USS sensors on the front and rear bumpers from Model 3 and Model Y vehicles will be extended to Model S and Model X in 2023, the company said in a recent notice on its support pages.
USS measures distance with ultrasonic waves. These sensors are often deployed in late-model vehicles as proximity sensors for anti-collision systems for parking and other low speed applications.
Tesla has launched its vision approach used in Full Self-Driving Beta to replace the sensing inputs from USS. “With today’s software, this approach gives Autopilot high-definition spatial positioning, longer range visibility and ability to identify and differentiate between objects,” the notice says.
Tesla also tracked the transition to Tesla Vision when USS is not equipped for some vehicles, saying there will be a period when Park Assist, Autopark, Summon and Smart Summon are not available, but did not say for how long.
Many carmakers still rely on radar, USS and even lidar for sensing capabilities, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been vocally opposed to using lidar for years, mostly due to high cost, and continues to oppose lidar even as costs have declined drastically in the past two years.
Tesla engineers defend vision sensing on the basis that it follows how human drivers for decades have used their eyes to sense road conditions. With software enhancements, they believe cameras can be better than human perception.
“I see eye to eye with Elon on [lidar being unnecessary],” said Anthony Depaolantonio, then associate manager of test engineering at Tesla in an interview with Fierce Electronics one year ago. (His current title is now manager of test engineering for Tesla.) “We have two eyes. As humans we don’t have lidar. We can judge distance, we can see things coming, so why can’t we do it with a car…In my mind, we have the best self-driving capability out there,” he said at the time.
When Tesla removed radar from its vehicles, the company made incremental improvements in safety and found its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles with Tesla Vision “have either maintained or improved their active safety ratings in the US and perform better in pedestrian automatic emergency braking invention,” the company said.
The recent Tesla support notice added that the removal of USS follows a “best strategy” for the future. “Given the incremental improvements already achieved with Tesla Vision, and our roadmap of future Autopilot improvements and abilities, we are confident that this is the best strategy for the future of Autopilot and the safety of our customers,” the notice says.
Removal of USS is now formalized by Tesla with its recent notice, but Tesla observers have expected the move for years, going back to the Cybertruck in 2019 when bumpers did not seem to be equipped with ultrasonics, as noted by Teslarati.
By: Matt Hamblen
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