According to the latest report, Tesla has applied to use a new radar in its electric cars, which is very confusing to the outside world, because its CEO Elon Musk has made it clear that Tesla plans to use only Camera-based vision technology to achieve autonomous driving.
After years of using a suite of sensors including cameras and radar, last year Tesla announced a transition to a “Tesla Vision” system without radar, using only cameras and neural network technology. Tesla believes that the current road system is designed for human drivers, who use vision (eyes) and brains (neural networks) to operate the vehicle. Tesla believes that by replacing the eyes with cameras and the brain with neural networks, a self-driving system can be built that is safer than a human driver.
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After Tesla stopped using radar in June last year, Musk said that the safety probability of pure vision will be higher than vision + radar, not lower. However, Musk also added at the time that Tesla may still use radar if there is a “very high-resolution radar”, saying: “A very high-resolution radar would be better than pure vision, but such a radar is not No. I mean vision with high-resolution radar would be better than pure vision.”
There are some signs that Tesla is working on the issue, following reports that Tesla wants to add a new “4D” imaging radar with twice the range of previous radars. A few days ago, a new device registration document submitted by Tesla to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was exposed on the Internet.
Although this document does not mention the actual use of its new device, it can be confirmed that it is a brand new high-resolution radar device. Tesla hacker Green noted that the radar uses the same frequency as Tesla’s previous front-mounted radars, which would suggest a similar purpose. Notably, the label also says “Made in China”. This has to make people wonder if Tesla no longer intends to stick to the “pure vision” route without radar.
The move has some Tesla owners who have purchased Tesla’s FSD software worrying that if Tesla decides to add new hardware, their vision-based system won’t be enough right now. Since 2016, Tesla has claimed that all vehicles it has produced are equipped with all the necessary hardware to enable self-driving capabilities via software updates in the future. This turned out not to be the case, as Tesla had previously upgraded the onboard computer.
