How hard would it have been to write a press release explaining why they are removing radar, what it means to safety, and how it impacts the future of self-driving?
I doubt Elon has any sort of data. This is a way to maintain Tesla’s brand image during the radar chip shortage, and continue selling cars.
Hell, even Tesla says vision-based proximity might not be fully functional for some time for new Tesla’s. Clear evidence that this is rushed and not ready.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/15/teslas-decision-to-scrap-i...
MobilEye for example can run on vision and radar independently and they have been for a while. The reason they don't remove one or the other sensors is to provide redundancy.
When your tech can kill people, it's a good idea to provide redundancy.
Why don't we force ever car to have radar, sonar, cameras, lidar and so on. Who cares what the cost is? If we can save a single life we should equip all 10 million cars that are sold every year with all of these things.
This is not how safety works, if with vision they can hit the targets they are trying to achieve and radar causes issues, then removing it is a option. Radar also uses energy and is extra weight you have to transport and its extra cost.
This is specially true that because of all their investment into vision their new pure vision solution is better then the old vision+radar solution.
If their vision system was actually good/safe and was truly unneeded then they'd have a stronger case for removing radar (but not a watertight case, because redundancy). As it is, their vision system sucks.
Where are you getting that information?
It shows his ignorance. What happens when their model misclassifies with high confidence and fails to detect an obstacle? A collision.
There is a reason why every major company out there uses radar/LIDAR in addition to vision. It's because machine vision is a heuristic and it can and will fail with high confidence in its predictions. In those situations if you only have vision you are screwed.
Whereas lidar/radar are based on physics. They are physical systems and thus fundamentally more reliable and consistent than MV.
Thats why we use lidar/radar in places like the ISS to dock vehicles, because safety is critical.