• PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Yeah, pretty much every complaint about the current state of Tesla’s FSD boils down to one acronym: “LiDAR”.

    For the unaware, Elon has convinced himself that cars should be able to drive better than humans, while receiving less visual information via LiDAR. All of the early “wow factor” stuff from Tesla’s self-driving, (like the car automatically braking because it sensed an accident four cars ahead,) was due to radar. But Elon demanded that they get rid of the radar sensors, and move entirely to LiDAR. Because it has lasers.

    But the problem with LiDAR is that it can’t see around obstacles. It works via light, just like our eyes, and that means it can’t detect anything beyond the car in front of it. With radar, it could see two or three cars ahead. It could see through/around them to detect obstacles, pedestrians, etc… But now it can’t do any of that, so they’re much more prone to accidents.

    • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Even if you buy a Tesla for the EV and tech, you should decline FSD and not rely at all on any of the automated driving features. It’s all a lie.

    • Epsilion
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      10 months ago

      You’re slightly off here. Elon (and Tesla as an extension) doesn’t like LiDAR, and doesn’t use it in any of the vehicles. Cost, complexity, and sensor fusion issues make it undesirable to them.

      Tesla is using a vision only approach for their various driver assistance features, including FSD (and you should be able to find presentations where he mentions that humans use vision, so the cars should too). Whether that is a good thing or not is up to interpretation.

      None of the past or current Tesla models have LiDAR sensors - only radar, ultrasonic, and 7/8 cameras (with radar and ultrasonic sensors being absent from some newer vehicles)