Don't wait, the new Model Y doesn't have a radar

When will HW4.0 be on board?

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Author|Wang Lei

The boots landed, and the domestic Model Y cut off the radar.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the 369th batch of "Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products Announcement" change and extension publicity, Tesla China applied to change 4 models, from the public pictures it is clear that it is the Model Y currently on sale.

In the column of changing the extended parameter name, you can see that in the original parameter value, the option includes rims, front license plate frames, and no front fog lights, but after changing or expanding the parameter value, in addition to the original items, there is also a keyword: no radar.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

Combined with the previous declaration information, this change only cancels the radar, which means that the next new domestic Model Y automatic driving assistance function will be synchronized with overseas, completely using a pure vision solution with the camera as the core.

What radar was canceled?

At present, the domestic Model 3 and Model Y models are equipped with 9 cameras and 12 ultrasonic radars, 6 ultrasonic radars in the front and rear bumpers, and short-range acoustic radars, which are mainly used for parking and detecting close-range objects.

Source: Web

It also includes 3 forward-looking cameras (main camera, fisheye lens, long focal length lens) located above the front windshield, mainly used to detect environmental information in front of the vehicle; 1 rearview camera, located above the rear license plate, assists the driver to safely reverse to deal with complex parking scenarios; 2 side and rear cameras, 1 on the left and right of the front fender, mainly used to monitor the blind spot of the vehicle; There is one camera on each side of the B-pillar on the left and right sides of the vehicle, and finally one interior camera located in the rearview mirror that has not yet been activated.

In this way, the radar cancelled on the facelift Model Y can already be confirmed as 12 sonic radars on the front and rear of the body.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

The abandonment of ultrasonic radar by the domestic version of the model this time is not without a trace. As early as May 2021, Tesla began the transition to a pure vision approach, and due to chip shortages and swinging driving routes, Tesla began to abandon various radars last year.

Especially overseas, since October last year, Tesla has been working on ultrasonic radar, Tesla officially released an update on the hardware configuration of the new car: will use a pure vision system (Tesla Vision) to replace the ultrasonic sensor (USS).

It said that the Model 3 and Model Y delivered to North America, Europe, the Middle East and other regions will remove ultrasonic radar, and Model S and Model X will adopt the same plan in 2023.

After the removal of the ultrasonic radar, Tesla launched a vision-based occupancy network to replace the ultrasonic radar input. With software, this approach provides Autopilot with high-definition spatial positioning, visibility over greater distances, and the ability to identify and distinguish objects.

In other words, after lagging behind for five months, the domestic model configuration change finally kept up with the pace of overseas and was no longer a "special version" model.

The launch of this radarless solution at least proves that the Autopilot technology, which has not been pushed for many years in the Chinese market, is finally going to be updated to a version synchronized with overseas.

After the completion of this model facelift, Tesla's driving route scheme has been reduced from a multi-fusion scheme of "8 cameras + 1 millimeter wave radar + 12 ultrasonic radar" to a pure visual solution of "8 cameras" on a global scale. (Before HW4.0 gets on the bus)

Tesla's every choice has always been radical and bold, from the previous has been popularized overseas pure visual version Model 3 / Y performance, some overseas netizens said that the abandonment of millimeter wave radar new Model Y daily experience is not significantly different from the old model, automatic driving performance is still very good, and the new car is more sensitive and accurate than the old model in driving.

Tesla once confidently said that its pure vision solution is not at all inferior to the "vision + radar" solution.

The Model 3 and Model Y with a vision-only approach maintain or improve active safety ratings in the U.S. and Europe and perform better with automatic pedestrian emergency braking (AEB) intervention compared to radar-equipped vehicles.

As domestic models remove the last radar, compared with foreign road environments, domestic road conditions are complex and changeable, does it mean that Tesla already believes that only 8 cameras can cope with the domestic road environment?

When will HW4.0 be on Chinese cars?

Not long ago, Tesla HW4.0 hardware has been exposed by God, and it is certain that HW4.0 will be the future of Tesla's automatic driving program.

Overseas netizens said that Tesla has quietly begun to deliver the 2023 Model S and Model X equipped with HW 4.0, perhaps because the supporting software is still under development, and some functions are in an unavailable state, such as Autopilot, adaptive battery life, FSD Beta and other functions.

Source: Twitter

However, from the exposure of Green, the automatic driving solution used on HW4.0 hardware adopts a multi-camera + millimeter-wave radar design.

Tesla still invited the radar back after repeatedly jumping in the pure vision and radar scheme.

Specifically, on the basis of the original HW3.0's 8+1 cameras, HW4.0 has increased to an 11+1 camera configuration, and according to the annotations of the camera interface F-SVC, L-SVC, R-SVC, R-SVC, it is very likely that three cameras have been added to the front and rear bumpers, replacing the original side ultrasonic radar.

In addition, the most important thing is to add a 4D millimeter-wave radar, which is a super reliable radar in Musk's words.

Source: Twitter

As for which radar has been solved, it is the "Phoenix" lidar that everyone speculated before, because when overseas netizens picked up the car, Tesla salespeople showed him the configuration list, and the logo showed "AP4" while also equipped with a radar called "Phoenix".

Since HW4.0 is about to get on the car, at this juncture of the alternation of the old and new, the domestic Tesla Model Y model has followed the pace of foreign countries to announce the cancellation of the radar, which also means that this HW4.0 is temporarily unavailable to the domestic Model Y model.

Source: Tesla

It is not clear how long this facelift will last, but it is clear that the domestic version of the Model 3/Y will maintain its existing configuration for some time. In addition, according to the news, the Model 3/Y of the new HW4.0 may not wait too long, and may start iteration in October this year.

This also made the rumors that Tesla's HW4.0 hardware had appeared on the Shanghai production line self-defeating.

It should be noted that because Tesla's move to cancel ultrasonic radar last year was too radical, it can even be said that it caught itself off guard, because at that time, whether it was a domestic or overseas model, a large number of functions still rely on ultrasonic radar perception to achieve.

Therefore, for a period of time after the cancellation of the radar, the front and rear summoning, intelligent summoning, automatic parking, parking distance assistance functions, etc. of the new car were affected and could not be used, although the subsequent repair has been completed through OTA, but it still caused a certain degree of trouble to the owners of the new car at that time.

Now after the cancellation of ultrasonic radar in domestic models, whether it will follow the example of foreign countries to stop the function for a period of time, or update the new version of AP technology directly to the car, it will be necessary to wait for Tesla's official announcement.

Having said that, the radar of the domestic Model Y has been canceled, can it be understood as a reduction, so will Model Y usher in another wave of price reductions?