In 2021, Elon Musk made the shocking announcement that Tesla would be removing radar sensors from its vehicles, believing that the cameras in its EVs were advanced enough for it to achieve its lofty autonomous driving goals. As it turns out, plenty of Tesla engineers were concerned about the removal of radar.
A report from The Washington Post reveals that a number of Tesla engineers were “aghast” at Musk’s insistence on removing radar, widely seen as a cost-cutting measure. Engineers feared that the removal of such important sensors could lead to an uptick in crashes, noting that the cameras couldn’t be relied upon if they were obscured by raindrops or bright sunlight.
Tesla engineers went as far as to contact a trusted former executive to advise them on how to talk Musk out of it. He wouldn’t budge and in May 2021, Tesla announced it was eliminating radar on its new cars. What’s more, it then started to disable the radars already installed in customer-owned vehicles.
Former Tesla employees say the decision to remove radar immediately caused problems. Complaints filed with regulators reveal that vehicles were allegedly “stopping for imaginary hazards, misinterpreting street signs, and failing to detect obstacles” including emergency vehicles. An uptick in owners also reported cases of phantom braking with 107 complaints made over three months compared to 34 complaints made in the 22 months prior to radar being removed.
“It’s not the sole reason they’re having [trouble] but it’s big a part of it,” former NHTSA safety advisor Missy Cummings told The Washington Post. “The radar helped detect objects in the forward field. [For] computer vision which is rife with errors, it serves as a sensor fusion way to check if there is a problem.”
Read: Raising A Stink Over Sweaty Tesla Workshop Got Employee Fired, Court Hears
When Tesla removed and disabled radar, Musk said the best way to achieve autonomy was to use cameras and advanced neural nets, claiming this was the optimal solution to replicating human eyes and the brain.
Interestingly, Musk didn’t give up on radar technology entirely. Speaking with Electrek back in 2021, he said that “a very high-resolution radar would be better than pure vision,” but noted such a radar didn’t exist at the time.
It would appear as though Musk has acknowledged that radar is now needed. Indeed, new Tesla models with its latest Hardware 4 software suite come with a radar sensor, mounted in exactly the same position as it was on pre-2021 cars but apparently slightly more advanced.
