[jakeinspace]

If Tesla caves and ships LiDAR, I don’t see how they can get out of refunding all previously sold FSD packages. They can continue working on camera-only FSD but it will be immediately apparent that there’s a massive gulf in safety and performance between that and the LiDAR-equipped option.

[ikhatri]

To some extent Tesla is already going to need to resolve this hardware discrepancy issue. The new HW4 revision vehicles will have 4D imaging Radar and forward mounted side facing cameras (https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1625905220432671015?...) to address the blind spot that they've had since the original hardware (https://youtu.be/DlC2tpRocK8). HW3 vehicles cannot be retrofitted with HW4 (https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1625905186387505155?...) so this will likely be a large sore spot in the coming months as HW4 vehicles start hitting the roads and people start noticing the discrepancies.

Tesla of course claims that the HW3 cars will still get FSD at some point, but unless they somehow figure out how to bend light, that blind spot will continue to be an issue on older cars.

[HyperSane]

Tesla really needs to be made to pay billions for their FSD lies.

[lagadu]

Turns out that the HW4 model Y doesn't have radar at all: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1456/tesla-s-model-y-with-...

[ikhatri]

That's not what the article you linked says at all. Some HW4 vehicles that are shipping now are shipping without Radar (likely due to supply chain or cost issues). But HW4 was designed with a Radar in mind, it's present in the code, registered with the FCC and there are physical connectors for it on the HW4 compute module. You can see photos of the interior of the Radar in the thread from Green that I linked earlier or in this article (https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-hardware-4-hd-radar-first-lo...)

The fact that some early HW4 units will ship with the updated camera suite but not the Radar only further adds to my point that some users are going to be left with inferior sensing systems despite having paid the same $10k for FSD as everyone else. The whole "radar will be used to train and improve the vision" argument is just nonsense made up by Elon & Tesla fans. A properly functioning radar camera sensor fusion system will be superior in every way to a camera only solution. And there will be 0 Tesla's that actually achieve "full self driving" (ie. you going to sleep in the back-seat and waking up at your destination) until Tesla adds things like a cleaning system to their existing camera solution for example. The hardware is simply inadequate.

[lagadu]

I'm not putting into question the fact that having a radar is significantly superior to vision only, that's obvious.

I'm saying that, as we see, HW4 and radar are two distinct hardware configurations: saying that there will be a large sore spot because HW4 cars have radar is objectively false as not all of them do.

[ikhatri]

I’m super confused… you’re agreeing that having a radar is superior but you’re disagreeing that it’s going to be a sore spot? How is that possible. Regardless of how you name the configurations (HW4, HW4.5 whatever, the naming is irrelevant) the point is that there will be multiple configurations of sensing suites, some of which will be objectively better than others. That’s the sore spot.

The fact that HW4 and radar are separate configurations by name is not important. HW3 is also included in the mix (you can buy FSD on it) and it has totally different camera placement. So radar aside there’s still a difference in the sensor suite.

People who paid $10k and were promised “FSD” and future hardware upgrades have every right to be pissed off about this.

[TaylorAlexander]

Well, it’s cheaper to retrofit a $500 LiDAR than it is to refund a $10,000 option. I’m curious how they handled upgrades to the more powerful computer they released. And we can expect they will release another more powerful computer again. The same issues would apply, but they have no choice but to deal with it if they ever want to ship a fully functional system.

[Bluestrike2]

Refits might cost less than a full $10,000 refund, but they're definitely going to be expensive enough I could imagine Tesla trying to do everything in their power to avoid.

Installing the LiDAR unit in the front bumper would require replacing the entire existing front bumpers since there's no handy fake grille or whatever you can pop out and replace. You'll also have to paint the bumpers to match and blend onto surrounding panels since these cars have been in the sun long enough that a fresh-from-the-factory bumper will have an obvious color mismatch. If you don't, you'll have pissed off car owners to deal with and, in all likelihood, another class-action suit.

A roof-mount avoids that, but has its own issues. You'll needs techs to drill a freaking hole in the roof, mount the LiDAR unit, hope that they manage to seal the penetration well enough that water won't leak into the car, and then run cables through the interior. A whole hell of a lot of cars will leak, even if the work is performed to spec, so you'll have extend warranty coverage to deal with it. Plus, you've now got an ugly box on the roof that may or may not match the paint properly, whereas presumably the new cars will at least integrate the unit's lines into the body panels so it's not quite as obvious. The same thing goes sticking it on the hood. That's to say nothing of any hardware replacements and the fiddly bits that'll be necessary for refits.