Radar Removed from Model S now too...

[Daniel454]

Not sure if true, but on another thread here someone mentioned a Model 3 owner installed the missing radar on his post radar equipped vehicle and after a full system reboot, it worked, including increasing the AP max speed….

I realize it may not work that way in the S and I also know it may not work for long if it does at all but I will almost definitely be trying that on my new S.

I’ll give it a few weeks to see if I can stand it but more than 1 phantom braking every 90 days will be all it will take for me to try to install the radar.

Seems crazy to me to remove the radar while also being investigated by the NHTSA for phantom braking on the 3s and Ys….

Maybe one day the software will be solid enough to go vision only but not wanting to use a sub par system until then.

 

[whitex]

The public would know, people love data mining Tesla's software and disabling the radar would probably be an easily noticed code. But also seeing 2 - 3 cars ahead is the advantage of radar. If that ability disappears, then it's pretty obvious radar has been disabled.
As @terranx stated, Tesla's legal dept. obviously felt that notifying customers that their 3 and Y wouldn't have radar and getting their consent was important before purchase.
Do you really think disabling radar on a vehicle already purchased without notifying customers, and/or getting their consent would not cause legal issues, but also more issues with regulators? You sell someone a car with radar, tell them it's part of what keeps them safe while using autopilot, then disable it without letting them know. Good luck with that one.

I'm no engineer, but my opinion is radar, lidar or some other form of ultrasonic sensors are necessary for any form of smart cruise control or auto pilot. Just trusting what can be seen with a camera similar to our eyes is just Elon being too full of himself to admit he was wrong or admit that Tesla just couldn't source the parts for radar during the pandemic.

Yes, I do believe Tesla would get away with this easily. They have in the past gotten away with way more than that, selling vaporware they never delivered), selling cars without government required features (e.g. automatic on headlights) by saying they will deliver the software then by end of 2016 and never delivering till latter part of 2017. They sold me a 691hp car, only 2 years later added an explanation that not the whole car is capable of that power, and that my car would require 50% power boost to hit that spec (heck, the fuse they put in the battery would blow way before reaching this power). So this is small patatos. Worst case they have the radar stream the data and ignore it in software, plus suppress any issues if radar reports faults. Some hacker reporting back the fact that radar is not at all affecting the output of the neural network will make a news for a day or two, and that will be it. Tesla doesn't have a PR department, so will not comment on it. If it was ever to get to court, they will put up experts saying how their AI determined radar inputs are useless to their algorithm, therefore latest software doesn't use it. But it won't even get to this point as anyone wanting to go to court over this will spend way more time and money that they could possible get back in compensation from Tesla.

 

[whitex]

I suspect if their lawyers felt the need to have new buyers agree to a “vision agreement” before scheduling delivery, then they’ll feel the need to have existing owners agree to some sort of agreement before they remove radar.

Unlikely. New buyers have to agree because the radar they ordered is physically not there. Tesla will not go around removing radars from existing cars, their software will simply ignore it. They removed plenty of software features over the years without having to get customer permission.