Tesla's Model Y With Hardware 4.0 Doesn't Include Radar: We Take a Look at Why

June 1, 2023

By Kevin Armstrong

Tesla's Model Y with HW4 is coming without radar

Tesla

As Tesla continues to redefine the automotive industry, insiders have revealed that the company's upcoming Hardware 4.0 (HW4) will not include the radar module in its Model Y vehicles, at least not initially. This marks a shift in the company's approach towards autonomous driving, relying more heavily on vision-based systems. This strategic decision builds on the recent introduction of HW4 in the luxury Model S and Model X models.

HW4 Evolution and Vision Focus:

Previously, the integration of HD radar in the Model S and Model X indicated an evolution in the company's Full Self-Driving (FSD) hardware. However, according to a trusted source, Tesla is not including HD radar in its new Model Ys with HW4. This surprising decision could mean several things, possibly indicating that Tesla views HD radar as a "ground truth" to help improve their vision systems rather than a vital component for FSD vehicles.

Ground-truth Radar: A Tool for Vision Improvement:

In this sense, ground truth refers to the objective reality or facts of a situation, typically used as a benchmark to measure the accuracy of an AI system's predictions or observations.

Last year, Tesla registered a new high-resolution radar unit with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a move that sparked speculation about the company's approach to FSD. The radar unit, intended for imaging similar to LiDAR, hinted at Tesla's continuing interest in using ground-truth systems to train their machine-learning algorithms for vision accuracy. Despite Elon Musk's well-documented skepticism towards LiDAR for autonomous driving, Tesla prototypes have been spotted with LiDAR sensors.

HD Radar to be Added Later?

Although Tesla may be using its radar in HW4 vehicles to improve their vision system, other possibilities could have led Tesla to this decision. New Model Ys with HW4 may only be without radar temporarily, possibly due to a supply chain issue. New owners would still better off receiving a vehicle with HW4 and without radar than a HW3-equipped vehicle due to the improved cameras and faster FSD computer that includes redundancy.

Cost Savings

Of course, HD radar inclusion could also come down to cost. With the Model Y costing almost half of Tesla's luxury models, this decision could come down to cost. If Tesla believes their FSD system could perform almost identically to vehicles with radar, they may simply decide to forego the radio technology in lower-cost vehicles.

Balancing Vision and Radar: The Trade-Off:

While HD radar and LiDAR can provide highly accurate 3D depth measurements, their high cost and potential to overwhelm the FSD system with conflicting data have led Tesla to prioritize camera-based vision systems. Musk has consistently argued that self-driving cars should navigate the world in the same manner as human drivers, using cameras and computational power to navigate three-dimensional space.

Model Y With HW4 But Without HD Radar:

While excluding HD radar from the HW4 in Model Y might seem like a setback, it could prove to be a game-changer. Tesla's strategy of using radar to enhance vision rather than as a core component of its FSD system means that these vehicles may not be as disadvantaged as initially thought.

This approach is consistent with Tesla's earlier decision to remove ultrasonic sensors from some vehicles, enabling them to run vision-based park assist code and compare vision readings to ultrasonic sensor readings. This resulted in significant improvements in vision detection, further solidifying Tesla's commitment to a vision-oriented future.

Introducing HW4 into the Model Y may suggest Tesla's potential future strategies. For instance, commercial Robotaxis may employ multi-sensor systems, including radar and possibly LiDAR, to achieve full automation. Conversely, consumer self-driving vehicles could maintain the vision-only approach to keep costs down.

Ultimately, the transition to HW4 indicates Tesla's unwavering pursuit of refining autonomous driving technology. As the landscape of self-driving vehicles continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how Tesla's approach shapes the future of this sector.

You Can Now Track Tesla’s Robotaxi Deployment

June 15, 2025

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

Thanks to Tesla Yoda on X, we have found out that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet is registered on the Texas Department of Transportation’s public-facing Automated Vehicle Deployment website. This makes the fleet’s movements publicly viewable and trackable, and marks a first for Tesla.

This isn’t just any old FSD test - this is the first officially acknowledged, government-tracked, and sanctioned deployment of a Tesla Model Y operating as a ride-share vehicle. But that’s not all - Texas DOT’s tracker notes that the Tesla does not have a safety driver.

View on the Map

Visitors to the Texas DOT website can filter for “Tesla”, and see, currently, a single active vehicle operating in the Austin Metro area. According to the state’s official data, here’s what we know:

Company: Tesla

Description: Ride-share service

Status in Texas: Testing

Safety Driver: No

The final point is definitely the most significant here. While Tesla has been testing FSD with safety drivers for some time in Austin and LA for employee-only testing, this is the first time that a vehicle has been officially registered and deployed on public roads without a human behind the wheel for safety.

The fact that there is no safety driver officially shifts the liability from the occupant of the driver’s seat to Tesla, for the first time in a public setting. That’s already pretty significant - we previously dove into how Tesla plans to insure its own vehicles, and potentially owner vehicles in the Robotaxi fleets.

The status currently lists Tesla as “Testing,” confirming that the service isn’t available to the public, but this is expected to change in the coming weeks.

This testing phase is likely part of a short but crucial period that lets Tesla capture data on the safety levels of its current iteration of Unsupervised FSD without a driver supervising. Tesla already stated that they’d be avoiding difficult areas, so this testing can also expose additional areas Tesla may want to avoid, such as school zones or blind driveways.

Tesla will need to prove, both internally and externally, that FSD Unsupervised has the necessary performance to safely navigate the streets without any incidents.

Regulatory Milestone

For years, the concept of a Tesla Robotaxi has been a future promise. Now, it's a present-day reality, albeit in a testing capacity.

Having an official government body list a Tesla as an active, driverless vehicle shows that they’ve been able to clear regulatory hurdles, which Tesla has often pointed to as the issue. It demonstrates a level of confidence from both Tesla and Texas regulators in the system's capabilities.

While it's just a single vehicle for today, we’ll likely see this list slowly expand over time. Alongside being able to track Robotaxi incidents at the City of Austin’s website, we’ll be able to closely watch Tesla’s progress with its first Robotaxi deployments.

Tesla FSD in Europe: June Update

June 14, 2025

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

The road to bringing FSD to Europe has been a long and complex one and filled with regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles. Elon Musk, as well as other members of Tesla’s AI team, have previously voiced their grievances with the regulatory approval process on X.

However, it appears that there is finally some progress in getting things moving with recent changes to upcoming autonomy regulations, but the process still seems slow.

Waiting on the Dutch

Elon commented on X recently, stating that Tesla is waiting for approval from Dutch authorities and then the EU to start rolling out FSD in Europe. Tesla is focusing on acquiring approvals from the Dutch transportation authority, which will provide them with the platform they need to gain broader acceptance in Europe. Outside of the Netherlands, Tesla is also conducting testing in Norway, which provides a couple of avenues for them to obtain national-level approval.

The frustration has been ongoing, with multiple committee meetings bringing up autonomy regulation but always pulling back at the last second before approving anything. The last meeting on Regulation 157, which governs Automated Lane Keeping Systems, concluded with authorities from the UK and Spain requesting additional time to analyze the data before reaching a conclusion.

Tesla, as well as Elon, have motioned several times for owners to reach out to their elected representatives to move the process forward, as it seems that Tesla’s own efforts are being stymied.

This can seem odd, especially since Tesla has previously demoed FSD working exceptionally smoothly on European roads - and just did it again in Rome when they shared the video below on X.

FSD Supervised testing in Rome, Italy

Pending regulatory approval pic.twitter.com/TXh3uQIfrx
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) June 12, 2025

DCAS Phase 3

While the approval process has been slow, Kees Roelandschap pointed out that there may be a different regulatory step that could allow FSD to gain a foothold in Europe.

According to Kees, the European Commission is now taking a new approach to approving ADAS systems under the new DCAS Phase 3 regulations. The Commission is now seeking data from systems currently operational in the United States that can perform System-Initiated Maneuvers and don’t require hands-on intervention for every request.

This is key because those are two of the core functionalities that make FSD so usable, and it also means that there may not be a need to wait years for proper regulations to be written from scratch. Now, the Commission will be looking at real-world data based on existing, deployed technology, which could speed up the process immensely.

What This Means

This new, data-driven regulatory approach could be the path for Tesla to reach its previous target of September for European FSD. While the cogs of bureaucracy are ever slow, sometimes all it takes is a little data to have them turn a bit faster in this case.

Alongside specific countries granting approval for limited field testing with employees, there is some light at the end of the tunnel for FSD in Europe, and hopes are that a release will occur by the end of 2025. With Europe now looking to North America for how FSD is performing, Tesla’s Robotaxi results could also play a role.