Remix.run Logo
jmpman 3 days ago

Tesla has redundant front facing cameras on their cars. In my 2019 Model 3, there are three front facing cameras, each with varying angles of view, all three behind the rear view mirror, all encased in a small area lined with anti reflective material. Living in an extremely hot climate, that small area, with its anti reflective fuzz have degraded, depositing a film on the window, only in front of the cameras, obscuring all three cameras at the same time. Now, my Tesla just recently started complaining when the sensors were obscured with this deposit, but that wasn’t always the case. I used to be driving down the freeway with autopilot on, and it could barely track. Eventually I looked at the saved video footage and discovered my Tesla was virtually blind, while driving me down the freeway at 85mph. At least now, with recent updates, it warns me that it can’t see very well. However I question the resolution of the sensors. To drive legally in my state, you must have 20/40 vision. When I move my head around, I effectively have 20/40 vision all around my car. If I close 1 eye, I still have 20/40 vision. Does Tesla have effectively 20/40 vision in all 360 degrees? Maybe one of the front facing cameras has optical resolution equal to 20/40, but do the rest of them? I’m skeptical, and expect I’m being driven by what’s equivalent to a human who couldn’t pass the vision test, or at best, a human with just one eye that can pass the vision test. This isn’t even getting into redundancy in the electronics boards, connectivity from the electronics to the CPU, and redundancy in the processsing. We are being asked to put our faith/lives in these non redundant systems, but they’re not designed like Class-A flight critical systems on airplanes.