Tesla rolls out vision-based park assist, but it could still use some work
Tesla has released a new software update activating its vision-based park assist feature, and videos are starting to roll in showing it in action.
In October of last year, Tesla abruptly decided to stop including ultrasonic sensors on Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. These ultrasonic sensors were used for short-range objects detection, particularly during low-speed maneuvers, like parking, to help drivers know how far they are from objects outside the car.
Tesla said at the time that it planned to move to a fully vision-based parking system, using the myriad cameras around its cars to estimate distances and provide park assist functions, without the added complexity of these additional ultrasonic sensors.
Since then, these vehicles have been delivered without sensors, but with no driver aids to help in parking. For these cars, Park Assist, Autopark, Summon, and Smart Summon would not be available until a software update came along to enable them.
Now, just under six months later, these software efforts have finally borne fruit as Tesla has started rolling out vision-based park assist in its 2023.6.9 update. It should be available on cars now or soon, so check for software updates if you’ve been waiting for this feature.
The update notes state:
Tesla Vision Park Assist provides visual and audio alerts of surrounding objects. This feature uses the occupancy network to predict high-definition outlines of objects 360 degrees around the car.
Note: Tesla Vision Park Assist is for guidance purposes onlv and is not a substitute for an aware driver. Please be attentive and avoid obstacles as required.
The update does not seem to activate Autopark, Summon, or Smart Summon, yet merely brings back the lost functionality showing drivers how far they are from various objects while parking their car.
Videos have started to surface on social media showing drivers testing out the new functions in their garages and driveways, and results so far seem… a little inconsistent.
It seems to work reasonably well in some situations, showing roughly similar graphics as the vehicles with sensors, but with the added benefit of detecting objects all around the vehicle, instead of just in front or behind. One driver found the measurements to be quite accurate in a well-lit and straightforward parking lot:
Though the lines are quite wiggly, significantly more so than they are when using ultrasonics.
In other situations, the system still seems like it needs work. Here, a driver pulls between two cars and toward a trash can, before the system deactivates and states “park assist unavailable” when he gets close enough to actually need it. Then, he gets out to compare the car’s 26-inch approximation with reality, and eyeballing the distance, thinks that it’s closer to “three and a half, four feet”:
And here, another driver tries to use it with a bike rack attached to the rear of his Tesla, and the system continually detects the rack as an obstruction, repeatedly telling him to stop even though there’s plenty of room behind the car:
Electrek’s Take
Well, it’s clear that the system still needs some work. Which, frankly, is not unexpected when it comes to Tesla’s history with similar things.
A couple years ago the company abruptly removed radar from its cars, moving to a fully camera-based system for its driver assist features (which it’s now reversing course on). At the time, this led to temporary limitations for new owners of non-radar cars, who had to wait for software updates to re-add those features.
The same has happened here with ultrasonics, which caught several customers by surprise. Tesla has sold a lot of cars in the last six months, and I know of at least one who hadn’t heard the news of the missing ultrasonic sensors and was quite annoyed to realize he had just bought a vehicle without a relatively standard modern feature that he had expected his brand-new high-tech $53,000 car would have.
Tesla owners have gotten used to similar things happening, and often give the company slack because actions like these are balanced out by the benefit of over-the-air updates, which improve cars and add features over time.
But this is such a basic and expected feature on modern vehicles, and it has been estimated that these sensors cost about $114 per car. That’s a significant cost but certainly not a massive one, but we’re six months in and so far we’ve only seen one of the four missing features reactivated for the cars in question.
Further, the feature just doesn’t look ready for prime time yet. A feature like this doesn’t need to work 50% of the time, or even 99% of the time – it needs to work 100% of the time because any dings or scratches don’t just go away the next time you park, they stay there for good. If drivers are going to rely on it, and use it in place of their eyes, it needs to be reliable. And if drivers aren’t going to use it in place of their eyes – as Tesla currently recommends that they don’t – then why don’t they just use… their eyes? What’s the point of the sensor if it’s just replicating what your eyes see?
One benefit of ultrasonics is to provide additional confirmation of distance through something other than vision. As in the first embedded video above, the driver could already estimate distances with his eyes, but the ultrasonics would give him additional information that he doesn’t have visually. If the car is just estimating visually the same way the driver does that, then it’s not giving any new information.
This doesn’t mean the system can’t improve. Surely it can and it will have access to more advantageous angles than the driver’s eyes do, and be able to look all around the car at once instead of only in one direction at a time (as it already can). And in certain situations, it already seems to do a good job. But for now, the visualization doesn’t seem a lot better than eyeballing, which is disappointing six months after the feature was unceremoniously eliminated. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another six months for underwhelming results from Autopark, Summon, and Smart Summon.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will remove “safety monitors” from the passenger seats of Tesla’s Robotaxi vehicles in “about three weeks,” which would mean we’d see completely driverless Teslas in the Austin area potentially by the end of the year – if that timeline sticks.
Tesla has been working on a system that would allow vehicles to drive themselves, which has been in “beta” release for over a decade now. It calls this system “Full Self-Driving,” despite the fact that the system does not currently drive itself.
That has not stopped Musk from consistently promising more and more of the system, despite its stagnating capabilities. Over the course of the last decade, Musk has consistently promised driverless vehicles within the coming year, with deadlines consistently passing by without achieving that goal.
One of those promises has been the creation of a driverless taxi network, which Tesla used to call “Tesla Network” and is now calling “Robotaxi.” The idea originally came with the promise that owners could use their cars to make money by running them as taxis, but that hasn’t panned out.
Tesla did roll out its own version of a taxi network, though, in Austin, in June of this year. While it’s done a few cool things, the cars each have a “safety monitor” in the passenger seat who can take control at any time, which means the cars aren’t truly “driverless” since there is an operator, they’ve just been moved to the passenger seat.
In the time since Robotaxi’s rollout, it’s made quite a few mistakes and had a high crash rate. But Tesla also delivered one fully unoccupied vehicle from the factory to a local buyer, which was a cool (and, as yet, still unique) stunt.
Throughout the year, Musk has claimed loudly that the system would improve rapidly, stating that by the end of the year Robotaxis would be available to half of the US population (they are not) and that Tesla’s fleet would grow by more than 10x by the end of the year (it has not).
But now we have another bold prediction from Musk, stating that the safety monitors will be out of a job by the end of the year.
During a videoconference at a hackathon event for xAI, one of Musk’s other companies (which he is trying to get Tesla shareholders to bail out), Musk was asked a question about the barriers to unsupervised full self-driving. Musk answered:
Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. There will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them, not even anyone in the passenger seat, in about three weeks. I think it’s pretty much a solved problem, we’re just going through validation right now.
The “three weeks” timeline is familiar to longtime Tesla followers. Over the years, Musk has often promised fixes or software updates in “two weeks,” and they often take longer than that.
Three weeks is a lot closer than the “next year” promise that we’ve heard so many times for full autonomy, but given its proximity to the oft-inaccurate two-week timeline, we’re not sure these vehicles will actually be ready in time for New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Nevertheless, it’s a closer timeline than Musk has usually given, so there may be truly driverless Teslas operating sometime soon™.
Also, reading the statement more closely, it sounds like they won’t necessarily remove safety operators from every vehicle, but some vehicles. This could be similar to the singular driverless vehicle delivery that Tesla did – a PR stunt, rather than a full rollout. We’ll have to wait and see.
Tesla’s main competitor in the robotaxi space is Waymo, which has been operating truly driverless vehicles for several years now. The company has also been operating autonomous, driverless vehicles in Austin since March of this year.
Musk went on to talk about future improvements to Tesla’s software and hardware in his answer.
The company is currently on hardware previously deemed HW4, though to cash in on the AI stock market bubble, it now refers to that system as AI4. He said that AI5 will be 10-40 times better than HW4 and go into volume production in 2027, with AI6 coming soon after.
Musk’s mention of future hardware improvements neglects one important aspect of these improvements, which is that for every hardware improvement Tesla puts into its fleet, the more vehicles it will have to upgrade later.
Tesla long promised that its vehicles had all the hardware for self-driving, which means it’s going to have to upgrade a lot of cars – and there are court cases around the world seeking to force the company to do so. Together, these lawsuits and other potential challenges could mean billions of dollars in liabilities for the company.
Musk then closed his statements by claiming that “our” goal is to “to understand the meaning of life and… propagate consciousness out to the stars,” which is not Tesla’s goal. Tesla’s actual goal is to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. He may have been referring to xAI’s goal, but given the answer was about Tesla, perhaps he was confused (or perhaps he doesn’t care about Tesla anymore, and isn’t a good CEO for the company as a result…)
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VW’s retro-tastic minivan hasn’t been the sales success the company might have wanted, and a lot of that has to do with the van’s sky high price tag. Now, VW is asking: will a $10,000 discount be enough to create some buzz for the ID.Buzz?
Volkswagen is offering $7,500 in Retail Customer Bonus cash this month – up from the $2,500 the company offered its Black Friday customers – that, along with an additional $2,500 unadvertised dealer cash incentive that CarsDirect is reporting absolutely, definitely exists, adds up to a stout $10,000 total discount on the all-electric VW ID.Buzz … and that’s before you start haggling with your dealer over the MSRP.
It’s a lot
As much as I like the the Volkswagen ID.Buzz, its starting MSRP around $61,545 (incl. destination) puts it at nearly twice what you’d probably expect a minivan to cost if the last time you shopped for one was at a Dodge store. Still, that hefty price tag is some $20,000 higher than the baseline Toyota Sienna hybrid or Honda Odyssey.
That 50% higher price is a lot to swallow even if you do buy into the nostalgia. Still, the ID.Buzz is capable enough, and with ~230 miles of range and 282 hp on offer from its battery/electric motor combo – plus Supercharger access – it’s at least able to keep up with the minivan competition.
So, while that $10,000 discount isn’t going to turn the ID.Buzz into the second coming of the affordable, family-hauling Caravan, it does bring VW’s electric people-mover a little closer to earth. In fact, with a $50K price tag, it’s right in line with the average transaction price of a new vehicles. So, if nothing else, that reduced price could finally gives electric minivan buyers something to buzz about (I tried so hard to work that in, you guys).
If you’ve been shopping for a family-hauler and dig the retro vibe over something like the (excellent) Kia EV9, click through the link below and set up a test drive at your local VW dealer.
SOURCE: CarsDirect; images via VW.
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Peterbilt has jumped into the MD truck ring with the launch three new medium-duty electric trucks that deliver zero-emissions power, ultra-fast 350 kW charging, and proven, versatile platforms for delivery, utility service, and vocational upfitting.
The new Peterbilt 536EV, 537EV, and 548EV medium-duty trucks slot into the same versatile medium-duty segments the company’s fleets already know, but swap diesel power for latest PACCAR ePowertrain, with up to 605 hp and 1,850 lb-ft of torque available at 0 rpm. That big motor draws power from a variety of LFP battery packs and be fitted with ePTO options rated for either 25 kW (two-battery option) or 150 kW (three-battery option), making them suitable for that can be sized for daily delivery routes, urban utility work, and municipal fleets looking to cut both emissions and maintenance costs.
What’s more, the new Peterbilt’s flexible architecture allows for integration with existing PACCAR suspension bits to make 4×2 and 6×4 configurations, and any wheelbase of 163 inches or longer, and up to 82,000 lbs. gross combined weight ratings possible.
“[The new trucks are] optimized for the demands of the medium duty segment, the next generation of Peterbilt electric vehicles deliver excellent efficiency, rapid charging and versatile configurations elevating customer productivity across a wide range of applications,” said Erik Johnson, Peterbilt assistant general manager, Sales & Marketing.
In addition to all those goodies, the PACCAR EV tech continues to be top-notch, with the previously-mentioned 350 kW charging, regenerative braking, and industry-leading ergonomics.
Peterbilt’s new MDEVs ship with a blue accented crown and grille for a distinctive exterior look, as well as EV-exclusive panels on the side of the hood. The interior design features laser-etched trim panels on the EV-exclusive Magneto Gray interior, just in case the driver in the quiet, smooth, and stink-free cabin forgets they’re in an electric truck.
Electrek’s Take
Ignore the headlines. The death of the commercial EV market simply hasn’t happened, and won’t happen any time soon.
If you believe the engineers and analysts at MAN Trucks and Orange EV (and, you should), an EV like this can pay for itself in reduced fuel and maintenance costs even without incentives, then you should already know what I’m about to say: the future of trucking is 100% electric.
SOURCE | IMAGES: PACCAR.
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