On June 11th, according to Teslarati, some Tesla owners discovered that the radar devices originally installed on their vehicles were unplugged after servicing.
Tesla has been working to achieve a pure vision-based autonomous driving solution, which only uses cameras without the need for radar. Tesla has already begun producing radar-free Model 3 and Model Y models and hopes to rely solely on cameras to achieve Autopilot and FSD functionality. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has referred to radar as the “crutch” of autonomous driving and has always planned to use a camera-based solution.
In May 2021, Tesla announced that no vehicles produced for the North American market from May 2021 onwards would be equipped with radar. The Model S and Model X models had already discontinued radar on new vehicles by February 2022. However, there are still some Model 3 and Model Y models on the market that are equipped with and have active radar.
We noticed that owners on the Tesla Motors Club forum reported that their vehicles had their radar systems unplugged during service repairs. Tesla notified this change in a service bulletin, saying, “Autopilot and active safety features that rely on the forward-facing radar sensor have transitioned to use camera data (Tesla Vision), making the forward-facing radar unnecessary.” Tesla informed vehicle owners of this change in the service invoice agreement, but people typically do not read the details of agreements.
Although Tesla owners may not have been aware of this change because they did not read the agreement, they should be aware that the company has gradually abandoned radar. If the radar systems are still plugged in, they will also be disabled through OTA updates. Another benefit of disabling the radar system is that it can help prevent battery drain because power is still needed even if the radar system has no function.
