Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles | Hacker News Reader

Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

electrek.co

71 pointsclouddrover51 comments

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 radar and ultrasonic sensors)

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

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

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.

Tesla never used LIDAR if I'm not mistaken?

Right, my mistake, I meant radar.

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.

Me too. Taycan hands down better than my old Tesla.

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.

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

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.

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?

My vehicle has a couple "dummy" things on the inside as well. Places for plugs and switches and things that are only on other models. Maybe it's something like that? It'll be an upgrade option or on a different model? It's probably much cheaper to make the housing thing to be used in a wider range of models.

“tesla reuses old plastic molds for new car models” is a much less interesting title, though.

Except it's not just the mold. They put a fake realistic camera in where the placeholder is. If it was to "fill space in a generic mold" they could have used a plastic cover. Instead they chose a realistic looking mock camera. I wonder why.

If they also manufacture the enclosure for the camera electronics in-house then it may still be cheaper to produce more of them than it would be to spin up separate manufacturing for a filler piece

> instead they chose a realistic looking mock camera. I wonder why.

For it to look better? Not everything has to be a generic plastic cover.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them.

What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

Cars do that pretty often. EVs for instance often have fake grilles for no reason.

My guess would be so that eagle-eyed ocd tesla owners don’t freak out over seeming to have fewer cameras in their car than their buddy’s previous model year version.

I’m certain there’s be posts complaining about being short a camera without any understanding of hw4 being better despite having a smaller quantity of cameras.

I bet this is at least part of the reason if not all.

It's still incredibly bizarre to go through the effort of manufacturing a real-looking fake camera instead of using an industry-standard feature-delete panel like the entire rest of the automotive industry.

The fake camera feels like it's trying to mislead people.

It could be but misleading has a few levels. One is misleading that it has a feature that it doesn't (like 100 HP vs 500 HP) and the other is putting something there that a person expects even though it's no longer necessary (like the close door button in an eleveator)

I think it's clearly misleading in-that it is pretending to have an expensive camera but does not.

No brand-new first-time Tesla owner is going to freak out because there's a feature-delete panel somewhere in the vehicle. There's probably others already after-all, they are very standard in most vehicles.

So... who is this for?

If it looked so terrible to remove one camera, then redesign that component to look good again. After all, it's not like they're going back to the old design.

This would be more akin to your brand new laptop having a fake ethernet port... why?

Many cars have fake exhaust tips. I see them all the time. Search for "fake exhaust". It looks like most of them come from the factory.

Those are for a different purpose. Many car aficionados have historically changed their exhaust system to achieve better performance. The fake exhaust pipes are to make the car appear performant and powerful.

It's somewhat similar. Three cameras looks like advanced FSD system.

> make the car appear performant and powerful

Which part is different? The fake camera gives the appearance of a working camera.

In many cases, cars are sold by tickling the interest of people who want performance.

  Tesla's Model S Page: "With a drag coefficient of just .208
  Cd, the lowest on the planet, Model S is built for speed,
  endurance and range. Improved aerodynamics and a wider
  chassis offer more responsive performance so you can take
  corners quicker and with more confidence." [1]

That's even the case with the Telsa Model X.

  Tesla's Model X Page: "With the most power and quickest
  acceleration of any SUV, Model X Plaid is the highest
  performing SUV ever built." [2]

And, for people who want their Tesla to have an exhaust for barreling down the road, there are 3rd party add-ons for that!

  Did you crave the performance of a Tesla electric car but
  miss the sound of a rumbling V8? A UK exhaust manufacturer
  may have the answer: fake external noise. [3] Youtube of
  the sounds from that fake exhaust.[4]

I guess there are some people, though, who see a camera and think of a performance built vehicle.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/models

[2] https://www.tesla.com/modelx

[3] https://www.drive.com.au/news/tesla-electric-cars-now-availa...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff4XEXYoE5k

I assumed they were talking about (specifically) fake dual exhausts, where the second pipe is not actually connected to anything.

That's what I wrote, "The fake exhaust pipes are to make the car appear performant and powerful."

A car grille is a much more prominent and expected visual feature of a car, though. This small, tucked away yet realistic-looking camera doesn't seem to fit the same reasoning for me. That said, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if some designer "couldn't stop noticing it missing" or something along those lines.

The 3 cameras are prominent and expected on Teslas though? The reasoning seems sound.

This isn't just EVs, it's currently fashionable on ICEs to block the traditionally placed grille, and then add airflow underneath.

Or the late-1980s Ford Taurus. ;)

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/1986-90-ford-taurus

Interestingly:

> In truth, most American cars had been "bottom breathers"--they got their air from below the bumper and beneath the car, rather than from air rushing through the grille and radiator--for years. For the Taurus, Ford stylists merely took the bottom-breather reality to heart, made it work for them, and blocked the nose of their volume-selling sedan. The overall effect instantly made the rest of Detroit's output look old-fashioned in the process.

Maybe it's just an actual part they have for other reasons.

The article says they did it because the camera needs to be on one side or the other depending on the drive side of the country. This must have been easier than building two different enclosures.

That was a highlighted top comment speculating on why it's there.

Still doesn't really explain why it's a whole fake camera instead of just a simple plastic plug.

Weird indeed. Blank buttons in base model vehicles are at least user-accessible as opposed to a camera module behind glass. Any time I add an accessory, the button fascia gets popped out and a rocker switch put in. Perhaps the dummy camera is the same form factor of a component that Tesla knows it will include in future releases and is just carving out room for a possible upgrade years from now?

When a car costs nearly $100k it better come with all the fucking upgrade options installed.

Alas. That is never the case.

It’s also a safe space for aftermarket accessories, say you add a bigger alternator and inverter and it gives you a spot for a switch. Or you add fog lights. Or some NOS.

Sure feels like Tesla owners are being experimented on to some degree...

That beta feeling

I'm guessing so newer parts can still be used as repair parts for older vehicles

Feels a lot like the “two motors for steering” issue where they’re omitting one motor for cost, leaving the car unable to be fully self driving until it’s replaced.

I cant think of many other reasons they would reduce coverage and redundancy for a sensor critical to their obstacle detection system.

Is it possible that removing a camera from the front of a car is a big enough change that it would require the car to go though crash testing again - in multiple countries?

Might be cheaper to use a dummy camera until the Model S/X is fully redesigned and has to be retested.

Is this so there is an extra camera for oncoming traffic?

Changes that Tesla made to the newest vehicles are very clearly cost cutting measures. Looking at how economy is doing, it's not a bad adaptation strategy.

Everyone knows that a ship with four smokestacks can't sink, so obviously a car with three cameras isn't going to crash.

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