Tesla removes parking sensors, the results are predictably terrible
Heres what really happened:<p>Tesla decided they wanted 'birds eye view', which most of their competitors had.   To get that, they needed more cameras and more camera inputs on their autopilot computer.  It would be a big redesign of many features of the car.    With birds eye view, parking sensors aren't really needed anymore, so they didn't place an order for new sensors.<p>However...   The big new birds eye view feature gets delayed by ~ a year, because it depends on new autopilot silicon (HW4).<p>Tesla is now stuck - they don't have the sensors to make the old version, the sensors themselves are EOL by the manufacturer, and the new version isn't ready yet.<p>So - the CEO takes the fall, and announces that this was the plan all along.  Software would replace the sensors.<p>That kept people happy for months.   But the software team was pulling their hair out - the camera placement on the old HW3 cars was insufficient to see things very near the vehicle needed for parking, so it was never going to work well.<p>And the autopilot software team is being pulled in a lot of directions, and hasn't really met expectations on any targets lately - although perhaps they're trying to achieve the unachievable.<p>Given the original screwup (not having a backup plan for when this big new feature was delayed by a year), I think they made the best of a bad situation.    Their approach of 'promise the impossible, and then underdeliver' will hurt the brand, but probably less so than any other approach.