Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision
There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering.<p>If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren&#x27;t at parity with the car that have it, although they &quot;fixed&quot; this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars.<p>The parking sensors on the Tesla are <i>really good</i> and very useful. They show a rough outline of what is around you and are displayed very nicely compared to some other cars. It is a real shame to remove this, and downright dishonest to characterize it as some kind of leap forward.<p>The cheapest bargain-bin cars have this feature. Your $100k+ Model S or X will not.<p>Even more concerning: some features simply cannot be replaced by camera. Tesla infamously does not have a front bumper camera, making it impossible to detect obstructions occluded from view by the hood. For 3&#x2F;S, which are low, this means it will be impossible to detect low obstructions like too-high concrete wheel stops and similar obstructions. Once the hood has occluded the view from the windshield cameras, these obstructions will cease to exist.<p>Laughable that this is being done on cars from a high-end brand, and that the remedy for customers who are getting worse cars today than you would get yesterday is to wait for these features to &quot;be restored&quot; at some indeterminate time in the future.