Tesla Places Big Bet on Vision-Only Self-Driving

The latest update to Tesla’s self-driving technology ups the company’s stake in a bold bet that it can deliver autonomous vehicles using cameras alone. But despite improving capabilities in vision-based self-driving, experts say it faces fundamental hurdles.

Last Saturday, Tesla rolled out the much-delayed version 9 of its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software, which gives Tesla vehicles limited ability to navigate autonomously. The package, which is already on sale as a $10,000 add-on, has been in beta testing with a select group of drivers since last October. But the latest update marks a significant shift by ditching input from radar sensors and relying solely on the car’s cameras.

This follows the announcement in May  that Tesla will be removing radar altogether from its Model 3 and Model Y cars built in the US and suggests the company is doubling down on a strategy at odds with most other self-driving projects. Autonomous vehicles built by Alphabet subsidiary Waymo and GM-owned Cruise fuse input from cameras, radar and ultra-precise lidar and only ply streets pre-mapped using high-resolution 3D laser scans.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been vocal in his criticism  of lidar due to its high cost and has instead advocated for a “pure vision” approach. That’s controversial due to the lack of redundancy that comes with relying on a single sensor. But the rationale is clear, says Kilian Weinberger, an associate professor at Cornell University who works on computer vision for autonomous vehicles.

Leave a Comment