On my way home from work I spotted these Model Ys in the Austin area. They had some extra sensors mounted on the bumper and some sensor mounted on a mast on top.
where was this?
Probably that's a lidar system. They don't use lidar in the cars typically but they will sometimes do this to verify the cameras are working properly Where did you take this pic, if you don't mind sharing. Is it in the robotaxis area? Maybe they're already planning on expanding the service area again
Theyre essentially some sensors to collect data to hone in and verify FSD, sometimes called 'ground truth data.' Its there to essentially verify what FSD determines as obstacles, distances etc. match the real world. Something they seem to do frequently as FSD gets updated, new models are developed etc.
Getting extra data for robotaxi deployment and expansion. It's either to build a highly accurate simulator to train the AI before deployment or HD mapping to make path planning easier. Nobody really knows. Maybe a good question for the earnings call.
Tesla uses LiDAR to validate the accuracy of their vision systems. These vehicles are recording both vision and LiDAR. Mapping the roads with these is currently necessary before they roll vision based robotaxi out in a new area.
Teslas
Ground truth data for AI
They are driving around so people can take photos and ask what they’re doing
You're... not wrong
Yep, make a precision map of an area. Like it’s never going to change.
[removed]
Pre mapping like goggle maps did
...weekly too
They're not mapping, they're verifying ground truth data
Search “FSD validation”
they use lidar to make sure that what the vision system is perceiving is accurate this is not mapping lol
This reasoning always blows my mind. They try to tell you that camera only is on par or superior to a mixed-sensor design, but then they need lidar to verify their vision only system is working right. Something doesn’t add up. EDIT: All these basic bitch responses where you guys all think you’re the only software developers who own Teslas. News flash, damn near everyone on reddit who owns a tesla is a software developer. I know how you write and test software, been doing it for many decades. Also have had two Teslas with FSD and 2 vehicles with other systems. If you can’t see the irony and humor in their approach to this, I can’t help find it.
They’re mapping and validating. I’d bet this is just outside the current operational zone.
that’s not how validating something works. you need a different technology or standard to compare it against.
robotaxi expansion
Yeah read what you wrote. Again. Guess you don’t understand testing
Those things can be mutually exclusive. Validating measurements with one tool in tests doesn’t mean you need them in practice.
Former SpaceX engineer here. This is typical when testing. You don’t want to use the exact thing you’re testing to prove itself. It’s like dividing by zero. For instance, If you want to make sure a ruler was printed correctly, you wouldn’t measure it with an identically produced ruler, you’d measure it with a different type of ruler that is a proven good ruler. Now you have two different types of known good rulers. You will never need to use both together again. I’ve never owned a Tesla, but I’ve tested many Falcons, Dragons, Starships, and Starlink satellites.
Trust but verify. They trust it's just as good or better (cheaper) but they are just comparing how they stack up against each other. How would they know if they don't check?
How doesn’t that add up? Seems very logical to me. They know that the camera system is less verified and less correct than the mixed system from before. Camera alone is a new paradigm (compared to what most team have done before). You want to verify that the new system (camera alone) is accurate and correct by comparing it to the old proven paradigm (lidar + camera + radar etc). If you don’t verify the new simpler implementation against the proven old complicated but accurate system, how will you know how well it works at all? How precise it is? What its potential limitations are that need to be improved? And yes. I know that the argument will be that if they need to verify using the lidar in the first place, why not just build it into the system? To that I’d say that Tesla believes that they can get very close to what you’d get from the mixed sensor system with cameras alone. At least close enough that adding all the new systems for a small bump in performance wouldn’t be financially expedient. I personally think that relying on camera alone probably isn’t good enough for the level of safety I’d want from the system, and Tesla probably knows that too. Which is why they have inactive HD Radars installed (from what I heard) in a lot of their newer builds. So that if radar proves necessary they can just flip a switch and include that as well.
I wouldn’t test with a ruler that I claimed wasn’t as good as my ruler. How do they know which technology to trust? The reason you test against something is because it’s the standard.
It’s where they perform tests involving teslas
Its not the Google camera and not the Apple camera but it is the same setup so I guess they are mapping something like in streetview but no idea why. Maybe they want the map as bonus material to train new taxis? Would be on brand for Elon to do things in texas second
Those are validation vehicles. They are not testing out new lidar systems to implement on the cars. They just need to validate Tesla vision.
Correct! Which makes the Lidar advocates / promoters even more incorrect. Tesla buys the over priced solution just to compare its results with the cheaper vision only system.
Isn't it ironic that Musk staunchly rejects lidar as the primary mechanism in his cars but will gladly use it to verify what he claims the cars will do using other technologies.
Why would you test against something that’s inferior to your technology?
How do they know if they don't test?
They have never publicly admitted that a lidar version is superior to their vision only system so your entire argument is moot. According to them they’d be testing against an inferior system. It just proves they know lidar is better.
Honestly this isn’t a very bad marketing tactic
They claim they already do know their system is just as good or better. So they’re verifying against something they think is inferior? No, they know damn well lidar works better.
You're really going to ride that "they said it's better" thing into the ground lol. They're simply testing it against a different technology.
You always know you won an argument on reddit when you get a downvote but no reply.
Again, if they're trying to improve the vision only system to equal or better a lidar system they need to test both and compare the data.
No. This is exactly how he can probe that tesla vision is accurate enough to compete. If you have both systems at the same time you can get data independently with exactly the same circumstances. Like not similar, completely identical. That is worth a lot. If 1 vehicle can do it with vision and lidar systems say “yep keep on going” that is exactly the validation they need to say “see. We don’t need lidar, vision performs acceptable/similar under exactly the same conditions”.
It’s training data for the AI model. That’s literally the only way to do it. The camera vision model is trained to calculate a map of its surroundings and then compares it against the LiDAR model to score how it did. It uses the feedback from this comparison to improve the vision model
For anyone wondering where it was - its north east of Austin outside of current geo-fence area https://maps.app.goo.gl/zU84TUuUhnJehaLt9
do they claim that lidar is worse? dont they say its just more expensive and overkill?
people don't tend to reply immediately, it's been like 5 minutes...
Teslas
So ur saying that a car with camera alone vs the exact same car with camera + lidar is better? lol what? Lidar gives you more data points to work with than camera alone ever would. They don’t have to say it’s better. It just is. The bs Elon might spin about the signal to noise ratio is BS. You can decide when you want to enable each system. Cameras have their weakness and strengths and lidar does as well. Having both would mean covering for each others inadequacies. Their argument is purely financial. And I understand what they’re trying to do, and think they’re doing a great job of proving that cameras might be the only thing you end up needing. But they’re obviously also using lidar to validate their current state of camera only FSD. Which obviously implies that a mixed system is superior. Now, whether it’s superior while also being financially worth it is completely different.
You didn’t get it huh? Woooossssh
Kinda like gps? Have you used vision FSD ? Shit is good.
Imagine claiming you know better than the best ADAS team in the world.
It's getting someone else to check your work instead of checking your own work...
Especially people who actually know things and have productive things to do with their time.
I am agreeing with you 100%. You’re the first person to leave a comment agreeing with me. It’s Elon who seems to disagree and I think it’s just an excuse to save money while knowingly putting forth an inferior system.
There are different use-cases. LIDAR can be better than a camera at accurately measuring distance, but at the same time not sufficient for FSD (cannot sense color for example). Camera is good at sensing color, but worse at measuring distance. They might be just verifying how their ML algos calculating distance and how good they are. Though I'm pretty sure they have plenty of existing datasets for that already. This particular process in the photo is probably just 3D mapping the environment for robotaxi purposes. If you ever looked how their 3D space looks from a car's perspective you know that it's pretty vobbly. Which might be OK for Full Self Driving inside the car to make decision, but not OK for their simulator.
Flux capacitors
Yes it saves them money which passes along to the end user partially.
That's their robotaxi service in action or testing
I think they are measuring how high those cable/phone lines are.
Simple- Lidar is expensive to put into every one of their vehicles. When mass manufacturing, $1 saved is over $1million saved all together. And LiDAR isn’t just $1 more costly.
They might be mapping, and generating a training set with ground truth data at the same time.
Lidar is vastly superior to cameras at depth detection. It's just insanely more expensive and that's why Tesla doesn't use it on their cars.
Is the software the robotaxis run the same as FSD?---I was driving on two way road on FSD and car signaled to pass slow truck --it was not clear of oncoming traffic ,I had to take over and stop the car from trying to pass it would have been a head on accident.--has anybody else had the car pass a slow car on two way highway?
Maybe precise mapping is done better with lidar once or only ocasionally, but visual camera is sufficient go through the mapped area for robotaxi operation. But I am not an expert.
Saves them money at the expense of safety and performance of the system though.
Probably a fleet of camera equipped cars owned by a subcontractor working for Google Maps. A lot of businesses use Tesla's. They most likely have no connection to Tesla at all. The sub-contractor bought the cars for his fleet for the same reason many people purchase Teslas.
I don't think it's Tesla marketing at all. The cars are google camera equipped to collect photo's to be used for Google Maps. They have to mount those cameras on something. Why not a Tesla?
I don't think they even hide it though? Elon's been pretty open about the cost benefits of a camera-only system, and so has Tesla. Sure, they put out statements about how a complex system is more complicated to code for, and about determining which sensor has executive privileges in different situations. But let's be honest—that's really not an issue with how their neural nets currently work. In any case, the cost savings are massive. A Model Y is estimated to cost around $37k to build, with an extra $1-2k for the FSD computer and sensors. Meanwhile, the sensor system on Waymo cruisers costs nearly $40k *alone*—that's the full price of a Model Y. The entire Waymo cruiser sets them back an estimated $120k-$150k. That's at least 3 Model Ys per Waymo vehicle. Scaling is going to be a major issue for Waymo at those price points if they want to compete with Tesla, not to mention how much Tesla could undercut ride pricing due to lower overhead. We've seen deaths from people using FSD and Autopilot, yet the convenience and cool factor still outweigh those concerns—hence why people keep using these systems. How much will the public really care if Tesla has a slightly higher incident rate when they cost half as much as Waymo? Especially when Tesla starts leveraging their consistently high car safety scores in their marketing.
I have it on good authority from a friend named Led Fambert that says Tesla is announcing in the next earnings call that they will be introducing lidar into the fleet.
When something bad = Elon’s fault When something good = “It’s not Elon’s work, but the work of his engineers. He doesn’t do shit.”
That’s right. Never back down!
r/iamverysmart The “former” part is making sense.
Not crashing into pedestrians and other vehicles is totally overkill…
Expense of safety? Show actual stats that LiDAR is safer than Tesla Vision.
Cruise had lidar, Waymo has certainly crashed into people and vehicles as well...
Why is it ironic? If Tesla Vision and LiDAR produce identical results, why does he need to add expensive sensors? Unless you can show any factual data or stats that LiDAR is better or safer than Vision, ie LiDAR shows and performs better results than Vision, then Elon was right.
These particular vehicles are likely similar to google maps vehicles. Used for getting up to date maps of their robotaxi service areas, including employee only zones outside the public zone, to enhance navigation routing. 360 degree cameras on a stick essentially. Not to be confused with their vehicles that have been driving around with lidar for neural net confirmation. Those tend to have [shorter racks more flush with the roof, like this](https://x.com/iammikevalenta/status/1700632916399665245/photo/1).
Don’t look up which vehicles with lidar has crashed into pedestrians 🌚
Scraping data
Never ever! Only fools pivot
Do you know what fog is? Or rain, or glare, …
I’ve seen them way outside the mapped area. Saw one at hill country galleria area.
Cringe
Using lidar to make sure cameras are working but won't use lidar in conjunction with cameras........... yeah that makes sense
Two camera (our eyes) have worked for 120 years. Maybe intelligence and experience matter more.
This thread is full of people answering that question
Car Periscope. For traffic
It wasn't an actual question. There's also several comments pointing out the irony in elon using this but also denying its use. How FSD going btw? Oh yeah
Shouldn’t they be doing this before deciding to go with vision only on ALL of their cars?
Lol, I started as a software engineer, was promoted three times to lead engineer, and retired this year after 7 years. Specifically, I was the only lead engineer on the system that all vehicle software and hardware is tested on. SpaceX and Tesla often collaborate on things like this. I’ve personally spoken to Tesla engineers about how SpaceX tests their hardware. I know what I’m talking about.
This is BS. If this their rationale, they should have done this before going with vision only on all of their cars, at least the one equipped woth FSD
Doesn’t this prove that lidar is more accurate ? You usually test your equipment/tool/data against something more reliable.
They have been doing this for many, many years. They're just double checking their work for robotaxi in austin, that's all.
Elon has never said LiDAR is worse, just that it isn’t needed to make a car autonomous.
Yes- I’ve had my FSD suddenly turn into the opposing lane for no reason. The three times it has happened I was on a major highway , two lane road, 80 Km ( 50 mph) limit , rural area, with no traffic approaching. I was not passing anyone, there was no obstruction on the road. The first two times it happened , I didn’t report it. I was in shock. The third time it happened ( last week), took over, got back into the right lane , and reported the incident. It’s pretty scary.
Or other vehicles?
Do you want your car to look like it’s carrying a roof rack luggage thing that spilled open 24/7? Do you HONESTLY think they would sell a similar/significant amount of cars if they had a setup like this?
That does not look like lidar(unless it’s solid state). Probably cameras
You have to do it for each new model. At the very least, it can weed out wild anomalies in the new net.
They have been testing against LIDAR with this since like 2015
"Hey everyone, so, yeah that whole thing about Vision Only being better than Lidar........"
No, in fact it proves the opposite. Tesla runs these tests to see if vision can get equivalent data compared to lidar.
They've been doing this for years. This is how they've always tested and calibrated FSD.
Northern Austin, near Pflugerville
So no confidence in their vision only system after 10 years? Its time to add more sensor in addition to camera only then
Not just luggage thing, it's like a 3.5 foot heavy duty tripod.
Not overpriced, just more expensive.
How to build a working vehicle
You know lidar doesn’t have to look like that if it’s actually built into the car, right?
so they do need to rely on Lidar...got it. GOOGL it is.
How could you possible infer that? Lidar is extremely accurate, it’s just not very feasible in production consumer vehicles. Why would you not want to use highly accurate external tools? In fact, because Tesla has tested against lidar so long and still remains firmly vision exclusive should show that they are seeing good data for their vision system That’s like saying why does a chef taste test food even if they have been cooking for 10 years.
Cheers, thanks!
Robocopter or Cyberchopper, future aerial transportation with retractable rotar blades. (Tesla Rotors).
Sure, a Waymo has a 360 lidar view but that means they have a bunch of lidar sensors sticking out all over the place. Still looks ugly as shit. Tesla is just using one extremely high up to ensure full 360 visibility from the sensor.
We all know that Tesla does not use HD mapping.
it might seem crazy what im bout to say
They literally have and continue to, as evidenced by this submission.
22! Jigawatts Marty! Great Scott!
I've seen a car with that equipment in Palo Alto, CA. On a Model X Plaid!
I saw some of these in silicon valley o-o
Lidar doesn't prevent you from crashing into pedestrians....
It is overpriced since the value it gives is not worth the price.
i guess its down to personal opinon then
They’re stress testing the cars for performance and durability at load. The contraptions on the cars are very heavy metals simulating the weight of OP’s mother.
Have you never double checked your work?
???? Was not even talking about that. Was referring to elon saying lidar isn't as good as cameras WHEN FSD IS STILL ASS
He’s not saying the tech isn’t good, he’s just saying it’s not practical for a consumer car, when they can get an extremely similar result with vision (that’s why they are constantly comparing, to make sure that vision is getting good results compared to lidar)
They’re testing car masts.
> There's also several comments pointing out the irony in elon using this but also denying its use. What's inconsistent about saying "this is unnecessary for everyday use but useful for training"?
"Whoops! Not that high, I guess."
Possibly inter-car communication
They are far from expensive now and continuing to plunge in cost.
Real self driving?
I'd argue it's pretty objective. The system either works or it doesn't. It's not up for any of us to decide, we just have to wait and see if vision-only systems can reach reasonable safety margins.
Tesla is always testing to make the best product.
The car has manufacturer plates, so not this.
Cameras can't see in adverse weather, at night, or in direct sunlight. So about 60 % of time.
Will this be required for all new areas, or just for the early rollout? Would be a massive bottleneck if so
Pure lies. See any of the videos of robotaxi driving in those conditions
I believe you, when robotaxis are driving around on no man's lands, instead of light polluted cities. Without making any dangerous moves/accidents. There's a reason Robotaxis are tested in the dry desert south instead of the rainy northern cities.
To ensure a safe and smooth rollout of the robotaxi, Tesla is clearly creating redundancies and thoroughly mapping out the areas they plan to expand into. Safety remains their top priority, and they're taking a cautious, methodical approach to ensure a secure launch. I can assure you that the Lucid and Uber partnership will experience an accident before Tesla does. Let’s just hope it’s not a fatal one.
LOL
If you claim to be better than the standard, you still compare to the standard. To ensure you are better!
This, a million times this!
Testla
Some of my FSD experiences are in snow, heavy rain, Including a multi-day trip from Florida to Nebraska and back. I’ve used FSD for quite some time and seen the HUGE improvements over time. @LennytheGoodson is 95% correct @Sanyess is 5% correct - I have driven (rather the car has) in many conditions. I have seen sun glare be a problem only a few times. I can count the occurrences on one hand…. And the car simply as for you to take over. In all honestly, if a person has a hard time seeing in certain conditions, i would expect the same from FSD. Even though there is plenty of global usage of FSD / RoboTaxi online…. I would suggest you try it for yourself. Otherwise you’d just be sitting in doubt as the evidence that contradicts the doubt grows beyond your doubt/belief over time. Pretty sure there will be TONS of finger pointing when/if it happens. Gonna be an interesting future. Flintstones vs Jetsons in real life.
My vote is what works better than a driver. If FSD is worse them my on driving capabilities, it's not worth it. About the stack: if a company doesn't take financial liability for their service, than there's nothing to discuss. And I think this is the key, as only BMW, Mercedes take responsibility for their self-driving tech in certain geofenced areas, Waymo with their automated taxi services, or human taxi driver's. Everything else is your own risk.
You forgot the /s man..?
Andrej has mentioned Tesla uses Lidar to collect data for training. They dont use Lidar on the inference side.
vision is the primary sensor in all autonomous cars. no one is building a car without cameras, because when “sensor fusion” has disparate results, any level 5 vehicle will always end up acting upon vision data over anything else.
Could be collecting training data. Compare what the car surmised and use the lidar to confirm.
Don't know you, but between a car with ugly sensors and one without, I prefer to live.
99% of the issues you see with FSD are software / logic /AI training issues. For example, it suddenly starting to follow the wrong lane markings, how would lidar fix that? It's not like lane markings show up on a Lidar scan.
That makes so much sense to just acan every road and then use cameras to adjust to traffic for example
This is one of the dumbest things I've read on reddit tonight lol
They are pivoting to lidar, as legacy car manufactures have told us via their PR department for years.
You would use a ring laser in front of the car for HD mapping of streets. You typically don't use 360° Laser scanners for this. I would guess they are testing the new HW5, likely including new cameras. You would essentially compare the photogrammetry results with the lidar results because they have a different type of error.
These robotaxis are looking more hilarious each day.
This is a good question. I want this to come to my area ASAP but if this special work is needed then it will be a while. FYI, I did a test drive a couple days ago and found FSD to be amazing, although it had one navigational error at a tricky intersection.
Isn't that exactly what they just said?
Here's a tissue. After that sneeze, you have a Pfluger in your nose.
So, if they are using Lidar to validate, why not use Lidar in the first place?!
They’ve used LiDAR to validate their vector models for years.
Apparently not. Measure once cut twice with this guy.
I'd guess nothing to do with FSD, but rather doing their own street view. Well except if it's just in Austin, it's at a pathetic scale.
Society has much higher standards than "better than a human". "everything else is your own risk" tell that to the pedestrians involved in robotaxi accidents
LIDAR is not an all weather solution either. I really wish people would get off that train and go read up on the limitations. LIDAR also suffers from sources of interference that video would not. Plus one major issue is that while they believe that LIDAR while not visible is not a thread no one has ever tested a scenario where an area would be saturated by LIDAR. Put it this way, a LIDAR unit on the cars that have them now will fry your phone's camera so what are the effects on living things when the number of LIDAR units operating in an area increase. All LIDAR solutions requires cameras to provide more context to identify what is seen. To be honest I do not think vision only will be the end method as an all weather sensing system like hi def RADAR is needed to identify objects vision has not yet caught. In the end why vision should work at night is that speeds would be adjusted to insure it can see far enough ahead to brake for any obstacle. People do not realize how often they outrun their lights.
Those are self driving uber cabs
still adds thousands of dollars of cost to the vehicle
All of those doesn't require lidar. the car have headlights for the camera to see in the dark. Wiper to see in rain and maybe some kind of filter or software processing to reduce glare.
They only need few lidar to validate vs millions if they install it in every car.
New performance versions 😊
Non serious answers… Looks like metal creepers… or the robot on interstellar
Tallsla
Get a load of the plate description… looks like GAY 6EY. Elon is such a child
Mapping with lidar…
This is the expansion area, by visually taking images from the places where Robotaxi stops the Vision system stops bringing people over. If Tesla takes a ride by mistake outside the geofenced area it means the on right front seat passengers will move behind the steering wheel and drive the Model Y till the agreed point, So expanding the geofenced area is taking time to also bring the areas within the area as reachable, to avoid addresses outside the area are selectable in the Robotaxi are selected.
This is simply Elon eating crow. Generating detailed scans of the service area is something he swore Tesla would never have to do with their FSD service. He promised that would be able to drive anywhere without help. Well it turns out FSD needs help, a lot. It's not remotely as safe as Tesla would like you to believe.
same, saw one in a Palo Alto parking lot last week
They are maping for FSD
Exactly!
The camera with filter, with night-vision costs more than the lidar.
Haters struggle with nuance because it doesn’t fit their black and white views.
school fuzzy office plants connect cover full retire vanish simplistic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev/home)*
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You would have a case if it was Waymo tech vs Tesla tech. Better than human is already here.... The evidence is already there.... Waymo Case that correlations to your sentiment: Waymo experiences roughly 2.1 police-reported crashes per million miles driven, while human drivers experience 4.85 per million miles - [https://www.consumershield.com/articles/self-driving-car-accidents-trends](https://www.consumershield.com/articles/self-driving-car-accidents-trends) Tesla Case that does not correlate to your conclusion: Tesla's Autopilot feature, when engaged, appears to significantly reduce accident rates compared to the US average and even Tesla vehicles without Autopilot. In the 4th quarter of 2022, Tesla recorded one crash for every 4.85 million miles driven with Autopilot 10x Better than humans - [https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-vehicle-safety-report-that-shows-autopilot-10-times-better-than-humans/#google\_vignette](https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-vehicle-safety-report-that-shows-autopilot-10-times-better-than-humans/#google_vignette) [https://www.tesla.com/blog/bigger-picture-autopilot-safety](https://www.tesla.com/blog/bigger-picture-autopilot-safety)
I mean, both can be true. He’s been known to enter meetings, shit all over them with useless ideas, and leave. Doesn’t stop the engineers from being brilliant even while needing to implement or work around his shit ideas though.
I’ve seen corporate Model Ys with these setups in Palo Alto, CA
I can’t tell Xs from Ys or Ss from 3s anymore with so many design variations now.
Doesn't need night vision. Maybe with some clever software processing trick it will do.
I have wondered about the health effects of LiDAR as well. I’m a pilot and we have to turn our weather radar off anytime we’re near the ground to not have negative consequences on the health of people on the ground. I know these are totally different systems but it does make me wonder if all these cars shooting out LiDAR all over the place wont have a compound effect on people.
Apparently, they’ve been spotted at marble Falls as well
Oh so they need mapping just like waymo. So they're no different and may be for added safety they will also add lidars later on.
Lidar performs no better, or even worse than cameras in rain and fog. Glare will still degrade the cameras that lidar systems also rely on.
[deleted]
Sure but as someone who lives where it rains and snows a lot, there is no faith that only cameras or software would ever fix that.
IMO, any new software version.
If it is BS then please enlighten us with a better way. This isn't about one method being superior to another, it is about testing to see that multiple independent systems agreeing. I personally am of the opinion that the vision only system is inferior, but if you can test and prove that you get the same results within some margin of error, then you can say it works. You can also capture data about what it not working so that you can improve your model. It is most definitely not BS.
Tesla have been using some iteration of these sensors for 10 years now and people still argue about it. Amazing.
We also cannot see in such times, for that we have stuff that solves that, like car has lights and we have tinted glasses when we hit direct sunlight. I am not saying CURRENT Tesla tech can 100% account for that, but in general I do not see a reason why sufficiently advanced camera be it 10 years in future, could not handle that
Supervised FSD definitely does not need mapping. I don't know if robotaxi needs mapping, but I don't think it does. They're just using lidar to validate their accuracy, not to rely on it operationally.
Nothing you said appears to contradict what I have said. Those companies have been granted limited scope trials on but broad deployment requires "society" approving of the safety and ethical quandaries of autonomous car's result when confronted with the trolley problem, among others.
they are just comparing ladar and camera
Saw 2 in San Jose, Ca yesterday
So near the tip of the shaft of the service area?
Looking for Waymos.
What is Tesla Tesling?
It’s a bot. “Please don’t feed the Groks” 🤣
They thought Waymo looked cool in a hat so they are trying for a cooler Tesla hat.
New performance upgrade
Everything they release is essentially a beta version, so it’s hard to give an answer. Dashboards that don’t warp in the sun?
Luminar Lidar - LAZR, s/ I wish.
I’m sure Tesla will have to do incorporate some sort of Lidar tech. The self driving is too risky with this small tech stack.
This is going to be cheaper than having a lidar system on every car.
Why should it need to? It's dangerous to drive through severe weather. Humans shouldnt do it, and robots shouldn't do it either. If robotaxi can drive through precipitation that is considered safe for humans to drive through, that's good enough. Beyond that, we're moving the goalpost.
Or, you're testing your new product against the existing product to make sure it's better. No point in releasing a new product that is worse than what's available. Right now, we don't know. Seeing as robotaxi does not require the lidar, but waymos require the lidar, it's more likely that the test is to make sure robotaxi can improve upon the places where lidar fails.
Sure, I'll let my friends know we need to move to the pampas as it's to wet here in the north of Europe. I'll also tell the SE Asians, they should bunker down for 6 months while the monsoon is there.
LiDAR doesn’t make it safer. Being able to see red green and white is mandatory for driving, lidar can only see a single infrared wavelength so signs, traffic signals, objects just look like blobs. Processing colour data is more safe given enough compute to process the additional data. There is a lot of context essential to driving encoded in colour data.
Just as in aviation, operations should be suspended in poor visibility. A lot of context essential to safe driving is encoded in a way that only a vision system can sense it.
Headlights are enough. You need vision to read road signs anyway.
Need lidar(Mavin N), radar, and cameras for autonomous driving.
they use LiDAR to verify their camera based self driving capabilities.
Tesla been “testing validating” for years now since 2021 atleast with these lidars… calling bluff they will implement lidar eventually .. they could use any lidar for that “ test validate BS” why using Luminar lidars?
Tesla uses Luminar Iris LiDAR in these roof racks. The pole is GPS. My guess is they are validating a Multi Sensor systems and will use it on their robo taxies No official press release that I am aware of yet.
LiDAR is only a small part Of the over all cost of the components for self driving. You need Cameras, LiDAR, Radar, computers, programming, automatic steering, with redundancy, and automatic braking with redundancy. The cost argument was valid in the past but with solid state an IRiS LiDAR each unit is cheaper than the roof rack. Next generation Halo LiDAR will less than 500 per unit.
They are finally realizing they need lidar back!
Maybe no testing, just training the model with additional data
So I can concede the point….. Do you have any links to prove this? The various details I’ve seen show lidar is more expensive and not as accurate. Many are itemized down to the cost per part. And even cost per trip. Here is a nice image to show the details at a high level. https://x.com/cryptopunk7213/status/1938033624093192308?s=46&t=VEjBGZEWDEAHnGaKlzW67w Another accounting view of similar details https://x.com/fredaduan/status/1831882938935603717?s=46&t=VEjBGZEWDEAHnGaKlzW67w
They are most likely mapping for expansion of cyber Taxi opposed to using LiDAR in testing LiDAR.
Vision even using stereoscopic isn’t as accurate at lidr in telling distances. Also lidr covers use cases that vision itself doesn’t do great in. Lidr has gotten so cheap that every iPhone had it now. It’s fallen from like $5k per car half a decade ago to under $500. I could find some sources. But to make a point Tesla tests its vision against lidr to figure out true distances. They are literally driving lidr around Austin and phoenix right now.
sources on LIDAR would be great when you get a chance. I am sure there are different levels/types. Yes… you are right… Tesla is testing /w Lidar in AZ right now. This is to supply data to the regulators. Provide solid proof that it’s not needed in their own streets. The model that is used for RoboTaxi will not use radar. Same as the cars that are using FSD today don’t have LIDAR.
LIDAR IS BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS!
Damn I missing there. The La Frontera oysters at Deckhand and the ribs from Salt Lick will always be a “must get” when I’m there.
Lol they finally caved to the lidar syndrome! I guess Elon finally found that lidar is useful.
Tesla has already had fatal fsd accidents.
Democracy, our trust, and, our patience
Mapping to expand robotaxi service area again
Those are Lidars made by Luminar. Model Name: Iris
They have been doing this since, well, forever. It's just to test the cameras. Considering that they are really only now really rolling out true FSD, it's to be expected that they will be extra careful. I fully expect in the future that they will later only do spot checks with LiDAR in different areas, just to make sure that there are no glaring problems. I could also see them going out to areas where they get a few reports of the cars running into trouble for whatever reason.
You are both right, as long as we introduce context to what he said. It \*is\* overpriced for trying to install on every car. It is exactly right for doing these kinds of checks.
I still think it’s down to personal opinion, i personally believe that Lidar/radar systems are better in conjunction with vison, rather than relying on vision only, and i believe there is plenty evidence why
If cameras can’t see it, your eyes can’t see it either.
Human eyes and vision are far superior than you think. Maybe it has something to do with our survival with millions of years, and evolution of land animals going on for 400+ million years? The human eye generally has a wider dynamic range and superior adaptation to varying light conditions compared to Tesla's cameras, especially in low light or high contrast situations. While Tesla's cameras excel at capturing a broad view and processing vast amounts of data, they can struggle in extreme lighting, cold temperatures, or when faced with glare or obscured lenses.
What I’m saying is that LiDAR is not worth the cost of putting them on all production Teslas when it’s possible to have a few Teslas with LiDAR validate vision.
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I’m saying it was a good decision by them to begin with. Going vision only and using LiDAR to validate gave them nearly the same accuracy after a period of time of improvements for thousands less cost per unit at the time of the shift (I know cost has dropped since).
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I don’t understand this sentiment. Vision only, after having time to mature, is nearly the same accuracy as LiDAR where it matters. I’ve had a vision only model 3 for 2 years and it’s never once gauged distance inaccurately. Where is this safety concern coming from? Maybe there was an argument early days of vision only, but I don’t see it now.
They test machine gun mounts to break into the African market
The interesting thing about seeing these validation vehicles expanding outward is what it tells us about Tesla's scaling approach. If they need to do this ground truth mapping for each new robotaxi area, that's actually a pretty significant operational overhead compared to their original vision of just flipping a switch nationwide. Don't get me wrong, it's still wayy more efficient than putting lidar on every production car, but it does suggest the rollout will be more methodical than some people expected. Makes you wonder how large their mapping fleet actually is and whether that becomes the real bottleneck for expansion speed.
interesting... Wonder what else they have brewing and when the robotaxi might come to California
‘Supervised’ and ‘FSD’ self-contradictory much.
Bruh, don't shoot the messenger. That's what Tesla calls it.
Not after you. Just pointing out that they came up with an absolutely nonsensical term.
I saw one at the Home Depot in Mueller
No fatal robotaxi rides, yet....
it’s not mapping it’s a way to ensure the accuracy of new vision models
fundamentally there’s no need to emit photons if AI can tease out the same information from ambient photons also cost sensor-fusion challenges power usage
With the millions of teslas on the road you would think there would be a way with the GPS and cameras to actually map all the roads in the US along with signs and turn lanes to improve their mapping data. As it is, we can't even report road closures, accidents or police in the NAV app...
must be mapping i guess
Tesla not trusting their own branding that cameras are better! 😂 lidar will always win
You realise that it will take decades to initially cover a country with a fleet of hundreds of cars, let alone a continent. It’s not cheaper than a lidar in each car.
Isnt the country already covered with Teslas that can turn into robotaxis with a flick of a switch?
If they need to validate every street with other cars mounted with Lidar? Obviously not.
Does this not have to be done every couple of years anyway? Even google maps has to send out cars every few years because new streets are built out or traffic flow modified. This may be for updating maps that Tesla used as they cannot depend on Google for that.
Google sends out vehicles mainly for their streetview offering afaik, the maps themselves are updated through other means.
They’re using a lidar system to try and improve their terrible camera based system……
Hopefully detecting potholes and debris on the road and how to incorporate it in Autopilot.
they want to see how much they missed.
in the end they will need lidar to take every necessary approach to reduce the error rate - its idiotic not to use every means possible -
It’ll never happen.
It's to map and train the vision system. It collects lidar data, primarily used for robotaxi network.
Why so many down votes? Everything I wrote above is just echoing the post above it and it's the truth. [waymo accident ](https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/s/gLUMUQDv9G)
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