Why Tesla removed Radar and Ultrasonic sensors? | Andrej Karpathy and Lex Fridman

Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

GUEST BIO:
Andrej Karpathy is a legendary AI researcher, engineer, and educator. He's the former director of AI at Tesla, a founding member of OpenAI, and an educator at Stanford.

PODCAST INFO:

SOCIAL:

[LexClips]

Guest bio: Andrej Karpathy is a legendary AI researcher, engineer, and educator. He's the former director of AI at Tesla, a founding member of OpenAI, and an educator at Stanford.

[jhawk]

I drove my Model 3 and Model Y with radar in foggy conditions, and they were able to easily pickup cars and pedestrians before I was able to see them. They were also able to identify cars past the car directly in front of me, which makes a significant difference in braking with heavy traffic. Now with FSD beta, I've lost both capabilities since Tesla disabled the radar. It is a noticeable step backward in capability, and removal of the ultrasonic sensors are going to result in the same.

[RockTo]

In my car, driving into directly very bright sunlight causes the camera systems to not work, with a warning displayed to the driver - YET the radar system is unaffected. It still works regardless of sun/rain/fog, and can keep pace with traffic, auto-brake, and accurately measure the distance to vehicles when cameras are unable to expose correctly.

[jakecoventry]

At least one of my Tesla cameras are blocked or blinded on every single journey I take. Sun through the trees, rain, fog, mud, snow, condensation...etc. The auto wipers use the camera instead of a simple rain sensor and are terrible in the rain - so bad I constantly have to press the stalk to clear the windscreen. I get what they are doing, but it's just not ready for prime time.

[Marcus-upwk]

Like - “Trying to have a conversation in a night club” it’s virtually impossible, however the deaf do it so easily with sign language..No distractions!

[taylorhickman]

"the sensors are a liability to you cause they cost us a lot of money" great answer...

[shoooozzzz]

Every time Andrej says 'entropy' you have to take a drink

[DS-zlup]

I have a friend who works for Mercedes. They are extremely excited to see Tesla take a step back so they can take on Tesla. 😂

[MacroEverythingAroundMe]

Andrej fast forwards his own speech to save time. 😳😂🤣🤓

[SiddharthKulkarniN]

I feel that was more an operational answer than an engineering one ..
I still feel that depth perception of vision alone is unreliable...

[Shackkobe]

Whenever someone changes/reframes your question: ( 0:20 ), they are being evasive.

"Does it make your perception harder or easier?" was the question. He did not answer the question. Instead, he responded by explaining that there were too many sensors, they were costly and there was a bloat of sensor information.

A simple challenge to his response would be: "Is the data you are receiving now, equal or superior to what you received before?". If he cannot give a clear "Yes" then all the cutbacks are to the detriment of safety and consequently highly irresponsible.

( 1:47 ) "The delta was not massive" is what he said when they compared a full sensor suite compared to a reduced sensor suite. By the way he spoke, and by the nature of the sensors removed, I would assume that the vehicle with reduced sensors was on the "harder perception" side of the delta gap. Hence why he evaded the question.

Phantom braking skyrocketed after radar was removed and Tesla is still trying to completely solve the issue. They clearly hadn't properly tested the efficacy of the sensor removal and when issues came up, there was nothing to fall back on.

You do not cut costs when you do not have an adequate replacement (which Tesla clearly didn't), and you do not cut costs without proper R & D testing. You play it safe when it comes to safety. Why do you play it safe? Because lives are on the line.

If Tesla is going to play in the autonomous driving space, they had better have a much more serious attitude when it comes to safety. Either that, or give up on this whole "full self driving" gimmick.

[Steve.Nguyen]

I just wish that Tesla achieved the same functionality before removing the sensors.

[thomasweyermann]

Thanks to this change, autopilot no longer works in heavy rain, light fog, or snow.
I used to exclusively use autopilot in these conditions because I knew the radar could see what I couldn’t and now autopilot just shuts off… way to go guys. You’ll never make full autonomous if you give up in slightly adverse weather.
I don’t see why you would limit machines to only the sensors and wavelengths that people can see when you could make them superhuman. Especially when tesla cameras are already far worse than human eyes (they consistently misread speed limit signs).

[THEMithrandir]

I work on ADAS functions and cutting out RADAR seems insane. I can see going for camera over LiDAR but RADAR is good, cheap and easy and it adds information cameras can't(see through fog, obstacles, etc.). Sure object fusion can be hard, but I'd rather work with a noisy hint that there could be an obstacle, especially when e.g. on a highway, than just not know it at all...

[tylert]

Imagine if airplane companies took this approach. "No we got rid of the backup engines as it's one more thing our engineers had to worry about. Gotta simplify the system dude"

[naggorski]

Lex: Tesla is removing sensors. Does this make the perception problem harder or easier?

Elons minion: entropy. Cost. Cost. Entropy. Complex. System. Cost. Entropy

[michaelmcgrath]

I have had my Tesla for four years and frequently have my cameras blinded by the sun or sending error messages when it’s dark because they can’t see in the dark. I live in the country and have to reverse up to my charger in the pitch black. My sensors are essential.

[Anchor]

Isn't redundancy a good thing when it comes to safety?

[pincombe]

I watched Andrej discuss this same topic on a different YouTube tesla fanboy video. (I wish I could remember the channel) In that interview he gives a totally different answer saying it isn't about cost but actually about making a better product. Very interesting to see that he doesn't dare try to pull that kind of bullshit with Lex.

[HarisAzakidis]

I think he probably forgot to mention entropy