Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by Hippocrates on Thursday March 09, 2023 @07:16PM (#35088786)

Knowing the Tesla owner community quite well, I suspect Tesla was hoping nobody would find out it’s a dummy and complain that the newer cars are inferior to the older ones (like they did with the LIDAR and ultrasonic sensors)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by giobox on Thursday March 09, 2023 @07:20PM (#35088823)

Knowing how car parts work quite well, I suspect nobody wanted to pay the large costs in retooling the mount and heated window they already manufacture in the millions of units. This kinda thing happens all the time.

The best/worst example I've seen recently is the Jaguar V6 which is still inside a V8 engine block, so the company could use same mounting parts etc:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmcXCwW5U3M

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by Serow225 on Thursday March 09, 2023 @07:54PM (#35089090)

wut

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by bdcravens on Friday March 10, 2023 @05:37AM (#35092761)

Wouldn't they just put in a plastic cover like every other manufacturer that has holes and ports not used by every model?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by giobox on Friday March 10, 2023 @11:57AM (#35097103)

The fake camera effectively is a blanking plate/cover - without the fake camera, there would be a visible hole in the mount at the top of the windscreen.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by partiallypro on Thursday March 09, 2023 @07:40PM (#35088982)

Tesla never used LIDAR if I'm not mistaken?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by Hippocrates on Thursday March 09, 2023 @08:31PM (#35089335)

Right, my mistake, I meant radar.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by ilrwbwrkhv on Thursday March 09, 2023 @07:42PM (#35089000)

The cars are steadily getting worse though. The first model s which I still have was fantastic. Since then I have moved over to the taycan.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by cjdoc29 on Thursday March 09, 2023 @09:48PM (#35089841)

I would not go as far as to say they are getting worse, but two events in recent history piss me off because it makes for a shit customer experience.

1. Getting rid of features like passenger lumbar and justifying it by saying few people used it. I've also been around long enough to remember they temporarily got rid of side-dimming mirrors on Model 3, only to bring it back months later. Supply chain woes or whatever - it's better to be transparent about this.

2. Getting rid of features like ultrasonics and not having a production-ready hardware or software solution for things like Park Assist. When the move to vision-only Autopilot was made, there were also several limitations to the vision-stack.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by nunez on Thursday March 09, 2023 @10:11PM (#35089960)

i have one of the 2020 3's without side mirror dimming and it is, indeed, frustrating at night.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by ilrwbwrkhv on Thursday March 09, 2023 @11:37PM (#35090443)

That's the thing though. It feels like a less luxurious product over time. I need all the gizmos at that price if I'm sacrificing on body work. And the borderline scam of autopilot, don't even get me started.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles by ballenf on Thursday March 09, 2023 @10:55PM (#35090166)

They called it a dummy in the manual. Seems like an odd way to hide it since there’s no regulatory requirement to come clean.

Seems clearly just an aesthetic move to keep symmetry and avoid retooling the large cover.

Also they can they easily move the cameras (center the remaining two) without partially retraining their machine learning?

[ Parent | on HN ]