Without any kind of advance warning, Tesla Inc. stripped its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV of their radars. All cars released for the USA in May rely exclusively on their cameras for assessing the road situation.
Commenting on the discovery, Elon Musk pointed out that machine vision was sophisticated enough to make radars obsolete. Whenever the car receives contradicting information from its camera group and the radars, it prioritizes the video feed as the more reliable source.
No mention was made of the fact that radars are commonly used in adverse weather conditions with limited visibility, something that cameras alone cannot overcome.
As a result, the newly produced radar-less Teslas will be limited to 120 km/h (75 miles per hour) going on autopilot. They will also try to keep more distance from the traffic ahead and may refuse to turn on certain driving aids, such as lanekeeping and tight spot parking assist. The company promises to restore there in the latest software update.
As far as we know, all Model 3 and Model Y assembled in China still have radars installed, but they will eventually follow the example of their U.S.-made counterparts.
Other car marques have also been known to employ sophisticated self-driving systems that make do without radars: for instance, the Subaru EyeSight package relies on cameras alone.