Could Tesla be upgrading the repeater camera with a wider angle?
Cyber Owners/YouTube
Tesla continues to roll out Full Self Driving and has also increased the cost of FSD. The system is logging millions of miles and constantly improving as Elon Musk continues his quest to make driving safer, preventing injuries and saving lives. However, there are still many skeptics of the program that has the potential to revolutionize transportation as we know it.
Some of Tesla's most prominent supporters are its harshest critics, but Musk said at the Tesla shareholders meeting in August that he welcomes honest evaluations. The YouTube channel for CyberOwners has a truthful, well-explained assessment. Mike Hoffman of CyberOwners demonstrates and clearly explains one of the most significant issues with Tesla's ability to see its surroundings and navigate safely. The blind corner.
Video Explanation
We've all encountered these situations while driving. Something obstructs our view, and we must lean over the steering wheel while slowly creeping forward to see if it's safe to proceed. As Hoffman shows, the current camera setup has a large area it can not detect. But there are solutions, some that would cost a lot of money and some that could be a simple camera swap.
Hoffman believes Tesla may already be testing a new repeater camera. The repeater camera, more commonly known as the blind spot camera, is on the front fenders. These cameras capture video to the side and back of the vehicle. But Hoffman noticed something different in a video posted by Ashok Elluswamy (below), Tesla's Director of the Autopilot Program.
It appears the program is gathering data from the repeater camera that is further forward than the current camera view. There is also speculation that the video Elluswamy shows is from the b-pillar, the one that is between the front and rear doors. Hoffman says the camera sees much further ahead and is convinced a new repeater camera is being used.
Alternative solutions to this blind corner dilemma include adding cameras to the front bumper and fog lights or moving the b-pillar camera to the side mirror housing. However, this would require new cameras and wiring, which would mean the computer would have to analyze more video streams. This action would be a considerable cost for Tesla, and Hoffman believes a camera swap is much more probable.
Hoffman might be right. It would not be the first time Tesla has changed the repeater camera. When a software update in 2021 included the blind spot feature, some users discovered the repeater camera had glare and was not much help. Tesla changed those cameras out for free.
Most of Tesla's cameras are made to be quickly swappable. Repeater cameras and b-pillar cameras can be swapped out in less than five minutes. That said, this change would require Tesla to swap out potentially millions of cameras. Not a cheap solution, but perhaps the best one to improve another aspect of a system on the cutting edge of technology.
Tesla wants everyone on its payroll to pitch in and help with a frantic end-of-quarter push. An internal email leaked to Electrek indicates that employees, even those not tasked with sales and delivery, to assist in getting as many vehicles out the door as possible. The email says there is “a very high volume of vehicles,” and management requests additional support.
This push should come as no surprise after a disappointing second quarter. The company delivered 18 percent fewer vehicles than in the previous reporting period. Tesla delivered 254,695 compared to 310,048 just three months prior. The decline broke a two-year streak in which the company continued to break its delivery record. The drop in numbers was not due to failures at Tesla, but due to COVID-related shutdowns at its Gigafactory in Shanghai, China.
Nevertheless, Tesla is adamant about righting the ship immediately. This quarter, like no other before, has seen significant competition enter the electric vehicle space and challenge the king of the sector. As a result, Tesla would like nothing more than to get back on track with another record-breaking delivery of its highly sought-after vehicles.
According to Electrek, the company-wide email stated: We will be delivering a very high volume of vehicles to eagerly waiting customers during the final days of Q3. To help ensure we can delight as many customers as possible, the delivery team is requesting additional support with key delivery-execution tasks.
For weeks Tesla’s careers page has listed dozens of Seasonal Advisor positions. The postings say these positions are “essential support at the end of the quarter, operating alongside our Sales and Delivery team to execute record-breaking delivery results.” The jobs were expected to last for two to three weeks.
Analysts predict that Tesla will get back on track and deliver more than 310,000 cars this quarter. In fact, one analyst has gone much further than that. Trip Chowdhry with Global Equities Research has publicly stated that he forecasts the carmaker will exceed 500,000 deliveries in the fourth quarter. In addition, he estimates that the time to produce a Tesla has decreased by 10 percent, and he notes other factors like the Semi coming online and increased capacity at factories worldwide.
Tesla is expected to report its quarterly earnings in mid-October.
Tesla's rolling out another unique feature with suggested destinations in version 2022.28.2. This comes off the heels of a previous announcement where Tesla was offering alternate routes.
Tesla's new suggested destinations show up under the Recents tab when you tap on the 'Navigate' button.
Tesla will list up to three destinations before displaying your recent destinations below them. Several owners have reported seeing this new feature in Tesla update 2022.28.2, but it's not clear whether it's available to everyone yet.
Tesla's suggestions appear to be a combination of recent destinations and favorites, but it's not clear exactly how Tesla is determining these.
A user by the name of Randall on the Tesla Discord noticed the new feature.
He was offered three suggestions, but after taking a short drive he noticed that the next set of suggestions was completely different.
Tesla may be using AI to determine your suggestions, so things like the number of times frequented, time of day, day of the week, the vehicle's location and more may be taken into account when Tesla is determining your suggestions.
Like everything Tesla, this is the first iteration of this feature and we're likely to see improvements on this feature in the near future.
For example, Randall noticed that although one of his suggestions was one of his favorites, the suggestion just showed the address of the destination and not the name Randall that given the destination.
The placement of suggested destinations could potentially be improved as well, instead of being displayed under Recents. Each of these suggestions likely has a probability score that Tesla determines and Tesla then displays any suggestions that are over a certain threshold.
It could be helpful if Tesla displayed suggestions directly in the middle of the screen when you first entered the car. If Tesla thought you were highly probable of visiting one of these suggestions they could display it more prominently, making it easier for you to enter the destination.
As the Austin-based automotive company continues to address various bugs and add features, owners are gaining more data for insight into their vehicle so they can better use it.
CEO Elon Musk has stated that any input into the vehicle should be considered (as a possible) error, so by adding yet another feature that the car tries to calculate your destination is a step in the right direction in Musk’s eyes. This is why there is no gear physical shifter in the refreshed Model S and Model X vehicles.
Instead, Tesla replaced them with an “Auto Shift” feature. This function works based on your vehicle’s understanding of which direction it needs to go. For example, if you’re in a grocery store parking lot, the car will see that it’s wedged between a few cars and know that it needs to reverse, or vice-versa. This feature is reportedly coming to all Teslas.
“I think generally, all input is error,” Musk explains at the unveiling of the Model S and Model X refresh. “If you have to do something that the car could’ve done already, that should be taken care of. The software should just do it.”
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