Tesla likes how simple it is, whether it’s a one-piece casting, a simple interior, or using as few sensors as possible. In 2021, Tesla decided to take the radar sensor out of its best-selling Model 3 and Model Y cars. It then decided that the radar sensor should also be taken out of its high-end S and X cars. Tesla is taking action against some cars that still have radar devices installed by unplugging the sensors when the cars go in for regular repair. Some smart customers noticed a no-cost line item on their repair estimates, which must be accepted before a Tesla repair Center can work on a customer’s car. This means that if the car’s owner agrees to the maintenance quote without reading it carefully first, the service professionals may just turn off the radar while the car is being worked on. Despite what was said earlier, Tesla is not taking radar devices out of customer cars. Instead, the repair notice, which is not available to the public but was given in a Reddit comment, tells how to unhook the radar from the vehicle’s wire harness and seal the plug’s end, leaving the radar unit in place but physically disconnected from it. Some owners have seen the line items on their estimates and tried to get rid of them, but the item was added back to the estimate immediately. Others have been able to get rid of the job by asking the service center not to turn off the sensor, which it seems to do. But owners say they were later told that “a future over-the-air update is going to disable the sensor anyway.” Vision-based Compared to cars with sensors, cars with autopilot have a few problems. The first rule is that cars can’t use cruise control or Autopilot at speeds over 85 mph. This isn’t likely to be a big problem, since the top speed limit in the US is 85 mph and EVs lose a lot of their economy at higher speeds. Also, because they can’t get closer than two car widths behind them instead of just one, it’s easier for other cars to get by them in traffic. Some owners have said that after they took out their radar module, they started getting warnings that their parking sensors were being blocked. This could be because of sound sensors. Some customers have been told by Tesla techs that their cars haven’t used the radar sensor in a while. One owner says that the monitor stopped working after a software update because the car “hadn’t used it once in over three months.” An old version of the automaker’s Transitioning to Tesla Vision help page said that starting in February 2022, all Model S and Model X cars made for the North American market would only have systems based on vision. So, why is Tesla constantly messing with radar when cars haven’t used it in over a year? A Tesla Motors Club user said that the radar sensor was “just draining the battery without being useful.” Problems with water getting into Tesla’s radar technology have also caused some sensors to be completely replaced. Sources say that the only people whose monitors have been turned off are those whose cars can already use Tesla Vision. Unlike cars that supposedly already had their software turned off, older cars or ones with less powerful Autopilot cameras and processors don’t have their sensors turned off. This is probably because they use the radar sensor. On the other hand, owners who paid to upgrade their Autopilot gear seem to have also had their radar devices unplugged. Tesla owners have different opinions about how the company handled the radar issue. Some people think radar is no longer useful because Tesla has improved its cars with technology that only uses vision. Others are upset because their Tesla car doesn’t have as many features as they thought it would when they bought it, and they think that removing the radar systems has hurt the way the cars work. It’s still not clear if this is the best way to do things.
