Investor Day Reveals Tesla Cybertruck Rear Screen, Bumper Cam, Circular Yoke and More [Photos, Video]

By Kevin Armstrong
The Cybertruck will have a camera in the center of the front bumper
The Cybertruck will have a camera in the center of the front bumper
Sofiaan/Twitter

The Tesla community comes through again. As soon as invited guests started showing up at the company’s annual Investor Day, new images of the latest Cybertruck prototype started hitting social media. For the last couple of weeks, the highly anticipated vehicle has been spotted in the wild, and we’ve dissected every frame of images posted online. But now we have close-up, clear pictures that reveal far more than previously known.

Front-to-Back Tour

Front Bumper Camera

Let’s start from the front and work our way back. We begin with the front bumper, which has a camera in the center. This is a big find. We know Hardware 4 is starting to show up in some vehicles, and it allows for up to 12 cameras. The new camera location may have something to do with the removal of the ultrasonic sensors. However, it's hard to say how useful this camera location will be as the front bumper takes the brunt of bugs, snow, slush, and rain.

Frunk Opening

The front end offers a bit of a mystery for the frunk. Some speculation is that it’s not just the hood, but part of the bumper would come up with the frunk. But really, you have to wonder why anyone would need a frunk with all of this space.

Giant Air Suspension Cylinders

The Cybertruck had massive air suspension cylinders
The Cybertruck had massive air suspension cylinders
MatthewDR/Twitter

Moving back, we find gigantic air suspension cylinders. We’ve reported on videos showing Cybertruck both high and low. These cans suggest that it has the ability to go over almost any obstacle.

Windshield Wiper

Further back, the next one is hard to miss. The biggest windshield wiper ever produced (slight exaggeration) still exists. Perhaps Tesla has not found a suitable solution to a problem identified by Elon Musk. He has tweeted that the wiper troubles him the most and “No easy solution. Deployable wiper that stows in front trunk would be ideal, but complex.”

New Cybertruck Steering Wheel

The Cybertruck was displayed with a circular yoke steering wheel
The Cybertruck was displayed with a circular yoke steering wheel
TeslaSynopsis/Twitter

Let’s move inside the cockpit. The first thing many investors noticed was the new steering wheel design. It’s not a yoke, it’s not a circle but a circular yoke"a sort of rectangular-shaped wheel complete with the usual scroll buttons. Like the Model 3 and Model Y, one screen is in the middle of the dashboard. But this screen looks bigger than the ones found in the other models. Could it be the 17" screen that's on the Model S and Model X? The dashboard appears to be some sort of fabric, possibly Alcantara, instead of the marble look that appeared in previous prototypes.

Rear Screen and Rear Seats

The Cybertruck on display had a rear screen similar to the Model S
The Cybertruck on display had a rear screen similar to the Model S
TeslaHype/Twitter

Jump into the backseat, and we find another screen, which appears to be the same size and location as the one in the Model X and Model S. The rear seats fold up but don’t fold down, confirming what was speculated a few months ago. Leaked images of the mega cast revealed the rumored midgate did not make it to production. The thought was the midgate, combined with folding rear seats, would make for an excellent camping experience or allow long items to be transported.

Roof Rack Rails

But it will not be difficult to transport whatever you need with Cybertruck. It looks like there are roof rack slots and an impressive box that seems incredibly rigid. On the side edge of the box, it looks like a switch to adjust the truck's rear suspension up or down. This would be handy to line up a trailer.

The sign near the Cybertruck noted that this is the Beta version of Cybertruck. Production is scheduled to start in the summer, with a full ramp-up starting next year.

Tesla Vehicle Data Report: How to Request It and What's Included

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

If you’re ever involved in a collision with your Tesla, there’s a good chance you can retrieve dashcam footage of the incident—provided the USB drive and glovebox survive. However, sometimes they don’t, and even dashcam footage may not be sufficient.

In such cases, you can request a full recording from Tesla, along with a detailed data report showing comprehensive information about your vehicle’s performance during the collision. Shortly after any impact, your Tesla automatically uploads its crash log and related data to Tesla’s servers when possible, even using the low-voltage battery if the high-voltage pyro fuses are triggered.

Hopefully, you’ll never need this, but here’s how to request a Tesla Vehicle Data Report and what you can expect in the report.

How to Request a Report

Tesla has a simple, automated process for owners to request a Vehicle Data Report. To do so, simply go to Tesla’s Data Association Page and log into your Tesla Account.

From there, you’ll see a form that contains several options. Under “Regarding,” you’ll choose “Data Privacy Request,” and in the next selection, choose “Obtain a Copy of My Data.”

Tesla will then ask you to choose a vehicle that’s attached to your account and a range of dates for which you want data.

Tesla will provide details for the whole date range you specify, so it’s best to keep it small. Once you hit Submit, Tesla will start processing the request. Collision data is kept for an extended period of time, enabling people to go back and find data as required.

The summary page for the Vehicle Data Report
The summary page for the Vehicle Data Report
@bilalsattar on X

Within 30 days, and often much sooner, Tesla should e-mail you back with the report in PDF format and a CSV sheet containing all the raw information related to the request. This information is available for any country in which Tesla sells cars. If your country is outside of Tesla’s regular sales zones, you can try reaching out anyway, but we’re not sure if they will retain your data or not.

Tesla can also send you footage and data even if the incident wasn’t recorded as a collision – they’ll send you whatever is available – for any specific timeline you request.

Tesla Vehicle Data Report

The report is several pages long and comes in a nicely formatted PDF package. It breaks down the incident into various sections that help highlight what happened during the event. The first page summarizes the incident by highlighting key events and metrics like Autopilot use and speed.

Summary & Event Information

The Summary and Event Information sections are on the left side of the first page. The summary section is a text version of what happened during the event, reporting the time of the incident, speed, and whether seat belts were used, among other details.

The event information section includes some high-level information, such as the location of the incident, whether dashcam recordings are available, and the date and time.

Driver Log Data Overview

The Driver Log Data Overview section focuses on a few Tesla features and shows whether they were enabled at the five-second mark before the incident, one second before the incident occurred, or at the time of the incident. Tesla will show whether Autosteer / FSD, Driver Monitoring, Cruise Control, and Manual Brakes were used at all of these points. They will also show the status of the driver’s seat belt. Later in the report, Tesla will show graphs for each of these features so that you can see if they changed over the course of the incident.

Speed and Collision

The Vehicle Data Report's formatting
The Vehicle Data Report's formatting
@bilalsattar on X

The Speed and Collision section shows a timeline-based graph of the vehicle’s speed at the time of collision, four seconds before the collision, and four seconds after. The vertical line on the graph represents the collision, giving you a better understanding of what happened before and after the incident. However, in the following pages of the report, Tesla provides numerous time-based graphs that highlight many other metrics, including brake pedal use, accelerator, steering wheel torque and more.

Area of Detected Impact

This area of the report shows the vehicle from the top-down view and which areas detected an impact.

Time-Based Graphs

The rest of the report includes detailed graphs showing various vehicle metrics before, during, and after the incident.

Some of these graphs include the vehicle’s speed, steering wheel torque, steering wheel angle (how much the wheel was being turned and in which direction), accelerator and brake pedal usage, and pressure of the brake master cylinder. Tesla will even show whether any doors were opened during the seconds leading up to or following the incident.

If Tesla has a video of the incident, that will also be provided as a link for you to download. All the other information - the charts and graphs - raw information is also provided in a CSV file, which you can open in software like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.

Not a Tesla App

To wrap up, Tesla is currently the only car manufacturer in the world that can provide this information to its customers at the drop of a hat. This information is immensely valuable, and it could be the difference between someone paying an insurance claim or being charged with a crime.

Tesla produces some of the safest vehicles on the planet, and their commitment to safety and reporting is spectacular. We’re happy to see Tesla continue to take steps to better help their customers.

Thanks to Nic Cruze Patane for sharing the report. We hope you never need to use this, but it’s good to know that it’s available.

Inside Tesla’s FSD: Patent Explains How FSD Works

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Thanks to a Tesla patent published last year, we have a great look into how FSD operates and the various systems it uses. SETI Park, who examines and writes about patents, also highlighted this one on X.

This patent breaks down the core technology used in Tesla’s FSD and gives us a great understanding of how FSD processes and analyzes data.

To make this easily understandable, we’ll divide it up into sections and break down how each section impacts FSD.

Vision-Based

First, this patent describes a vision-only system—just like Tesla’s goal—to enable vehicles to see, understand, and interact with the world around them. The system describes multiple cameras, some with overlapping coverage, that capture a 360-degree view around the vehicle, mimicking but bettering the human equivalent.

What’s most interesting is that the system quickly and rapidly adapts to the various focal lengths and perspectives of the different cameras around the vehicle. It then combines all this to build a cohesive picture—but we’ll get to that part shortly.

Branching

The system is divided into two parts - one for Vulnerable Road Users, or VRUs, and the other for everything else that doesn’t fall into that category. That’s a pretty simple divide - VRUs are defined as pedestrians, cyclists, baby carriages, skateboarders, animals, essentially anything that can get hurt. The non-VRU branch focuses on everything else, so cars, emergency vehicles, traffic cones, debris, etc. 

Splitting it into two branches enables FSD to look for, analyze, and then prioritize certain things. Essentially, VRUs are prioritized over other objects throughout the Virtual Camera system.

The many data streams and how they're processed.
The many data streams and how they're processed.
Not a Tesla App

Virtual Camera

Tesla processes all of that raw imagery, feeds it into the VRU and non-VRU branches, and picks out only the key and essential information, which is used for object detection and classification.

The system then draws these objects on a 3D plane and creates “virtual cameras” at varying heights. Think of a virtual camera as a real camera you’d use to shoot a movie. It allows you to see the scene from a certain perspective.

The VRU branch uses its virtual camera at human height, which enables a better understanding of VRU behavior. This is probably due to the fact that there’s a lot more data at human height than from above or any other angle. Meanwhile, the non-VRU branch raises it above that height, enabling it to see over and around obstacles, thereby allowing for a wider view of traffic.

This effectively provides two forms of input for FSD to analyze—one at the pedestrian level and one from a wider view of the road around it.

3D Mapping

Now, all this data has to be combined. These two virtual cameras are synced - and all their information and understanding are fed back into the system to keep an accurate 3D map of what’s happening around the vehicle. 

And it's not just the cameras. The Virtual Camera system and 3D mapping work together with the car’s other sensors to incorporate movement data—speed and acceleration—into the analysis and production of the 3D map.

This system is best understood by the FSD visualization displayed on the screen. It picks up and tracks many moving cars and pedestrians at once, but what we see is only a fraction of all the information it’s tracking. Think of each object as having a list of properties that isn’t displayed on the screen. For example, a pedestrian may have properties that can be accessed by the system that state how far away it is, which direction it’s moving, and how fast it’s going.

Other moving objects, such as vehicles, may have additional properties, such as their width, height, speed, direction, planned path, and more. Even non-VRU objects will contain properties, such as the road, which would have its width, speed limit, and more determined based on AI and map data.

The vehicle itself has its own set of properties, such as speed, width, length, planned path, etc. When you combine everything, you end up with a great understanding of the surrounding environment and how best to navigate it.

The Virtual Mapping of the VRU branch.
The Virtual Mapping of the VRU branch.
Not a Tesla App

Temporal Indexing

Tesla calls this feature Temporal Indexing. In layman’s terms, this is how the vision system analyzes images over time and then keeps track of them. This means that things aren’t a single temporal snapshot but a series of them that allow FSD to understand how objects are moving. This enables object path prediction and also allows FSD to understand where vehicles or objects might be, even if it doesn’t have a direct vision of them.

This temporal indexing is done through “Video Modules”, which are the actual “brains” that analyze the sequences of images, tracking them over time and estimating their velocities and future paths.

Once again, heavy traffic and the FSD visualization, which keeps track of many vehicles in lanes around you—even those not in your direct line of sight—are excellent examples.

End-to-End

Finally, the patent also mentions that the entire system, from front to back, can be - and is - trained together. This training approach, which now includes end-to-end AI, optimizes overall system performance by letting each individual component learn how to interact with other components in the system.

How everything comes together.
How everything comes together.
Not a Tesla App

Summary

Essentially, Tesla sees FSD as a brain, and the cameras are its eyes. It has a memory, and that memory enables it to categorize and analyze what it sees. It can keep track of a wide array of objects and properties to predict their movements and determine a path around them. This is a lot like how humans operate, except FSD can track unlimited objects and determine their properties like speed and size much more accurately. On top of that, it can do it faster than a human and in all directions at once.

FSD and its vision-based camera system essentially create a 3D live map of the road that is constantly and consistently updated and used to make decisions.

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