Is this normal for Park Assist?

[nanocat]

Hi TMC! Excited new owner of a Model Y 2023, but the Park Assist feature is really throwing me off.

Here are some false positives I've noticed - the car beeps at me and the screen tells me to STOP when:

• Every time I back out of my concrete driveway onto a patch of gravel, the car beeps right before I reach the gravel section
• When it's raining and I'm driving towards a puddle in front or behind the car, it beeps
• Sometimes tells me to stop when I'm over 2 feet away from the obstacle in front of me (usually happens in parking lots)
• Failed to tell me to stop today as I was pulling into my parking spot at home (almost resulted in a collision)

More on that last point - when I get home I pull up towards a fence and Park Assist usually gives me a good idea of when I need to stop. Today however, it completely failed to beep/say stop on the screen so I pulled up way too far and was only 1 inch away from hitting a piece of metal in front of the vehicle.

Yikes! This has pretty much scared me away from relying on Park Assist to avoid hitting things while parking.

Curious to hear what others have experienced regarding this feature? Is this abnormal or par for the course? Is there an easy solution to my parking problem? I've been thinking of buying some traffic cones and placing them in front of my parking spot.

 

[karkrazy]

This may be because of Tesla Vision at work? You don’t have USS, right? Don’t see this happening with USS… traffic cones or something similar may be your only option.

 

[flai54]

OP you do know that Teslas without USS have a blind spot right in front of the bumper because the cameras on your windshield cannot see directly right in front of you. I mean sure Tesla can continue to gather data and try to improve the distance estimation but ultimately a front bumper camera is much needed to provide that extra data needed to provide Park Assist the blind spot it is missing to give a better estimation. That is why the Cybertruck has a front bumper camera and soon the rest of the S3XY line up models will have the front bumper camera built by default to provide that feedback loop that is needed to make Tesla Park Assist more reliable.

You have to keep in mind if you drove a car in the early 2000s and before, people used to rely on the estimation using their human eyes and not on USS sensors. Just be more conservative and if the Tesla screen says stop when clearly there is some distance....just proceed by inching slowly with caution.

 

[nanocat]

Sorry, as I mentioned I am completely new to this. What is USS? All I know is I purchased a Model Y 2023 late December.

@karkrazy is Tesla Vision really that inaccurate? I mean we're talking about false positives every single time I drive. Just trying to figure out if this is normal or a broken camera/sensor. My theory is that the car seems to interpret any dips in elevation (gravel patch, water puddles) as a collision obstacle.

@flai54 so I'm hearing about this blindspot for the first time and the description you gave makes sense, but my issue is that the car didn't beep/alert me on the screen at all as I was pulling up, even when I was further away. It just completely failed to notify me at all so I almost crashed. Definitely going to be more conservative from now on.

That front bumper camera you mentioned seems like such a no-brainer to me. It would make parking so much easier being able to see walls, parking barriers, curbs, etc in front of me.

Coming from a Toyota Corolla, I'm no stranger to estimating by sight, but as I drive this Tesla I find myself starting to rely on the screen more, perhaps more than I should. Another example is when I'm changing lanes I look at the screen to see if there's red indicating that someone is in my blind spot - but I am always wondering if I can fully trust it 100%

 

[flai54]

Sorry, as I mentioned I am completely new to this. What is USS? All I know is I purchased a Model Y 2023 late December.

@karkrazy is Tesla Vision really that inaccurate? I mean we're talking about false positives every single time I drive. Just trying to figure out if this is normal or a broken camera/sensor. My theory is that the car seems to interpret any dips in elevation (gravel patch, water puddles) as a collision obstacle.

@flai54 so I'm hearing about this blindspot for the first time and the description you gave makes sense, but my issue is that the car didn't beep/alert me on the screen at all as I was pulling up, even when I was further away. It just completely failed to notify me at all so I almost crashed. Definitely going to be more conservative from now on.

That front bumper camera you mentioned seems like such a no-brainer to me. It would make parking so much easier being able to see walls, parking barriers, curbs, etc in front of me.

Coming from a Toyota Corolla, I'm no stranger to estimating by sight, but as I drive this Tesla I find myself starting to rely on the screen more, perhaps more than I should. Another example is when I'm changing lanes I look at the screen to see if there's red indicating that someone is in my blind spot - but I am always wondering if I can fully trust it 100%

USS = Ultrasonic Sensors (aka Parking sensors). You know those little small circle indents you see on most cars along the front/rear bumpers, those are the Ultrasonic sensors that is used for parking/measuring distances. Tesla removed the USS on its cars in Oct 2022 so any cars starting in Nov 2022 did not have USS and for a good 6 months or so, Tesla did not have a parking assist solution until Tesla Park Assist came out in May 2023 for non-USS Tesla vehicles.

At this point, I have no idea of HW4 cars like yourself will be able to be retrofitted for a front bumper camera when that is finally added to the S3XY line up cars. I don't think Tesla has a very good track record of doing much retrofitting of vehicles even within the same generation so I wouldn't bank on it. Your situation is unique since the windshield cameras can see the fence but your curb is stopped a good 1 foot before the fence so it is confusing the Tesla Park Assist and without a front bumper camera, it cannot see the curb up close. The fact that Tesla cameras can see it from far away but it doesnt matter until it is up close which Tesla cannot have vision when you are like inches away from it. You just have to deal with it. Most parking spots are flat and don't have protrusions sticking out.

However since I have a 2023 MY it will not be possible so I plan on buying a 3rd party display and manually installing a front bumper camera for my convenience although it won't work in conjunction with the Tesla Park Assist. I am ok with being conservative and using my eyeballs to estimate like I did in the 90s. I never had a car with USS anyways so I am used to estimating my parking distances anyways and look at the Park assist lines and not so much the "STOP" beep.

 

[nanocat]

USS = Ultrasonic Sensors (aka Parking sensors). You know those little small circle indents you see on most cars along the front/rear bumpers, those are the Ultrasonic sensors that is used for parking/measuring distances. Tesla removed the USS on its cars in Oct 2022 so any cars starting in Nov 2022 did not have USS and for a good 6 months or so, Tesla did not have a parking assist solution until Tesla Park Assist came out in May 2023 for non-USS Tesla vehicles.

At this point, I have no idea of HW4 cars like yourself will be able to be retrofitted for a front bumper camera when that is finally added to the S3XY line up cars. I don't think Tesla has a very good track record of doing much retrofitting of vehicles even within the same generation so I wouldn't bank on it. Your situation is unique since the windshield cameras can see the fence but your curb is stopped a good 1 foot before the fence so it is confusing the Tesla Park Assist and without a front bumper camera, it cannot see the curb up close. The fact that Tesla cameras can see it from far away but it doesnt matter until it is up close which Tesla cannot have vision when you are like inches away from it. You just have to deal with it. Most parking spots are flat and don't have protrusions sticking out.

However since I have a 2023 MY it will not be possible so I plan on buying a 3rd party display and manually installing a front bumper camera for my convenience although it won't work in conjunction with the Tesla Park Assist. I am ok with being conservative and using my eyeballs to estimate like I did in the 90s. I never had a car with USS anyways so I am used to estimating my parking distances anyways and look at the Park assist lines and not so much the "STOP" beep.

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation. Pretty sure my car is one of the new ones that DON'T have USS unfortunately. Ah well, I guess the best I can do now is take care of her and hope to resell a few years down the line, maybe trade in for the Juniper refresh.

"Most parking spots are flat and don't have protrusions sticking out" - well I reckon a front bumper camera would be helpful for public parking when there's a curb in front of you, or one of those concrete parking bumpers. Another feature I would find extremely helpful is forward facing cameras on the sides - this would help avoid curbing when you are pulling into street parking (versus needing to back in every time). Anything that takes guesswork out of the equation is welcome in my book.

 

[flai54]

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation. Pretty sure my car is one of the new ones that DON'T have USS unfortunately. Ah well, I guess the best I can do now is take care of her and hope to resell a few years down the line, maybe trade in for the Juniper refresh.

"Most parking spots are flat and don't have protrusions sticking out" - well I reckon a front bumper camera would be helpful for public parking when there's a curb in front of you, or one of those concrete parking bumpers. Another feature I would find extremely helpful is forward facing cameras on the sides - this would help avoid curbing when you are pulling into street parking (versus needing to back in every time). Anything that takes guesswork out of the equation is welcome in my book.

Certainly since Tesla wants to go full all in on its Tesla Vision camera based system, I still think they are missing 3 cameras (front bumper camera, and 2 front bumper side cameras near the sides of the headlights to provide that full vision) for completeness. In all honesty they could probably use another 2 rear side cameras as well for that additional awareness.

I never said that a you won't have parking spots that don't have a curb like your sticking out but in shopping malls...that is eye level which the Tesla can do a better job of capturing. I full agree that a front bumper camera is first and foremost the most needed camera to add to the Tesla vision system. But since I know Tesla won't retrofit HW3 cars like mines since there are no extra physical camera slots on the HW3 motherboard it won't be possible so I am going the 3rd party route. I really hope Tesla starts adding front bumper cameras to all of its S3XY line up since that Tesla can start doing data collecting and integrating this new camera with the Tesla Park Assist system.

 

[OCR1]

I used auto park for the first time today on my 2024 MYP. It was very difficult to give up control and hope the car knew what it was doing. It did a good job backing in to the space but it backed up to within a foot of a concrete poll. Considering I don’t have USS and Vision is not super accurate I was not comfortable with it doing that. I’ll probably be very cautious about doing it again any time soon.

 

[flai54]

I used auto park for the first time today on my 2024 MYP. It was very difficult to give up control and hope the car knew what it was doing. It did a good job backing in to the space but it backed up to within a foot of a concrete poll. Considering I don’t have USS and Vision is not super accurate I was not comfortable with it doing that. I’ll probably be very cautious about doing it again any time soon.

I mean most parking spaces are not a concrete pole so maybe try it on a normal parking space where there isn't additional barriers like island curbs or those parking spots with the ground curb things. I wouldnt just write off Autopark based on your experience.

 

[holmesm1]

I personally think 1 foot from a barrier is a good distance. How did it park in relation to the entire spot? Was it pretty much centered, front, back, left and right? We all have our preferences, but I prefer to be centered all around particularly, in parking lots, to lessen the overall chances of door dings.

 

[OCR1]

I personally think 1 foot from a barrier is a good distance. How did it park in relation to the entire spot? Was it pretty much centered, front, back, left and right? We all have our preferences, but I prefer to be centered all around particularly, in parking lots, to lessen the overall chances of door dings.

It actually centered the car perfectly. I just have to get more comfortable with the technology. I’ve only had the car for two weeks so I’m being very cautious about it. I don’t want to dent my brand new MYP.

 

[flai54]

It actually centered the car perfectly. I just have to get more comfortable with the technology. I’ve only had the car for two weeks so I’m being very cautious about it. I don’t want to dent my brand new MYP.

I just think you need to try Autopark in small steps to get familiar with the technology. I would try first in an open setting in an empty parking lot with no cars on either side to see how it performs. Then you can try how it fares when there is 1 car to one side of the parking space and then eventually 2 cars are on either side but with a fairly larger parking spot instead of trying to squeeze into a compact parking spot. At least that is what I plan to do when I get the free FSD trial to test those features out. I would try to stay away from areas where they have like slanted island curb spots or something that the Autopark may need to rely further on for the time being.