Andrej Karpathy: Why Tesla Removed Radar and Ultrasonic Sensors

Re:Andrej Karpathy: Why Tesla Removed Radar and Ultrasonic S... by YZF on Sunday October 30, 2022 @11:39PM (#33401801)

A car typically doesn't have lights shining in all directions. My Tesla doesn't at an rate. At night, backing into my driveway, I can barely see anything on the back-up camera unless the brake lights come on. If it's raining heavily it's much worse. But the ultrasonic sensors are really good at detecting obstacles pretty much all around.

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Re:Andrej Karpathy: Why Tesla Removed Radar and Ultrasonic S... by throwaway09223 on Sunday October 30, 2022 @11:56PM (#33401875)

Reverse lights are literally mandated by law. Your Tesla has them, and if they're not bright enough that's a fairly cheap and easy problem to fix relative to the alternatives.

Ultrasonics struggle in the rain, btw.

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Re:Andrej Karpathy: Why Tesla Removed Radar and Ultrasonic S... by YZF on Monday October 31, 2022 @12:30AM (#33402094)

The sensors also detect obstacles on the side of the car where there's no lighting. Every problem has some sort of solution, but removing the ultrasonic sensors on the Tesla is going to result in poorer obstacle detection performance. Sure, if they add 360 lighting and more cameras they can make up for that.

EDIT: Also I'm not quite positive why the image is so dark when I reverse at night. But it still is. The slope and surface of the driveway might have something to do with that... Still I wouldn't trust that camera. The ultrasonic sensors otoh seem to do a pretty good job. That's just my experience.

EDIT2: I love the Tesla btw. The ultrasonic sensors seem to work pretty reliably, they're pretty much their own system, the argument about complexity doesn't really seem to hold water and on the face of it the cameras won't easily replace them...

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Re:Andrej Karpathy: Why Tesla Removed Radar and Ultrasonic S... by cbsmith on Monday October 31, 2022 @03:10AM (#33402828)

Interesting. I find the rear camera in my Tesla is outright amazing in the dark. I can see objects so much more clearly with it than with the rear view mirror. It feels like I'm cheating... almost driving in the day.

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Re:Andrej Karpathy: Why Tesla Removed Radar and Ultrasonic S... by somat on Monday October 31, 2022 @07:00AM (#33404156)

Just curious, do teslas have a reverse light?

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Re:Andrej Karpathy: Why Tesla Removed Radar and Ultrasonic S... by kwhitefoot on Monday October 31, 2022 @08:46AM (#33404969)

Yes. Only one on my 2015 Model S 70D. Not sure how many on other Teslas.

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