Auto news on Youtube Dec 21 2017

exciting times we live in folks I'm sitting in a car that is capable not

well physically capable not software capable yet full self-driving that is a

Tesla Model S with autopilot two-point X I guess we'll see because technically

it's called 2.0 but officially it's like 2.5 because I did some hardware upgrades

so I thought since full self-driving isn't currently available yet since

they're still working on the software and the whole legal problems you know

why don't we see how many cameras the car is currently using for autopilot so

we're gonna go out and start covering up some of the one of them I think two out

of time should be good of the eight cameras on the car now there are three

cameras facing forward all with different focal lengths you got a narrow

view for further away mid-range with a slightly wider field of

view and a close range which is pretty much as fisheye as you're gonna get

there are one on each side pillar aiming out on an angle and then on the turn

signal markers they're aiming backwards and then the backup cam actually also

doubles as a rear-facing autopilot camera this gives the car's computer a

365 degree view now since full self-driving isn't

currently active or available the hardware's here the rumor has it that

autopilot is only using one camera at this time which would make sense because

it's kind of like autopilot one even though autopilot 2x it still isn't

anywhere near as reliable but let's just see for sure if tesla is in fact using

just one camera or still collecting data from all of them so we're going to cover

up cameras and we're gonna keep doing that until the

car says autopilot unavailable so here we go

all right well autopilot is still functional even with 2 out of the 8

cameras covered up I'm going to pull over here

and cover two more this time I'm going to cover the side pillar cameras all

right so test 2 we now have four out of eight cameras covered all right let's

bring her to 20 miles an hour

all right we got autopilot again let's pull over here into the park

right across from this lovely Cemetery

all right so now we've covered up the two side pillars to side markers so

that's four out of eight cameras that leaves four left we got three forward

facing and we got the rear backup camera so now let's do the backup camera

so that's what duct tape looks like an HD alright which way shall we go let's

go to the right

now theory says should work just fine in bet it does we still have the autopilot

so where shall we stop nexus stop over on this cool the set here

now we got three cameras remaining

getting strange looks from passers-by now let's do the who well we're gonna do

one at a time for the forward-facing cameras obviously one of them is still

definitely got to be required for forward-facing autopilot which one shall

we do let's start with the long-range one

all right I have what I think is the long-range camera covered up and I miss

not having my back up here

Oh

now just a little background on the car I'm in this is Emmet this is a loaner

I'm the first person ever to drive it other than Tesla services was literally

brand new and we've still got autopilot now we have only two cameras that are

not covered up so obviously what I thought might have been the long-range

camera is not the one that's being used for autopilot all right let's get

another one

it's chilly up 16 degrees Fahrenheit we now have seven out of eight cameras

covered and I'm doing my best it's a little hard not to cover more than one

on the front here and it looks like the center camera is the autopilot camera

now if I cover that one and it stops working that's the end of our tests why

because once the car detects that the visibility is reduced you're pretty much

locked out of cruise control on autopilot for a while until the car you

know everything's cleared up this is mostly to prevent people from using

autopilot in very implement situations such as bad snow or fog or really bad

rain so as our last test since now we know the wide-angle camera is the one

that's being used for autopilot and it's just a single camera now I'm going to

swap the tape around I'm going to cover up the center one the center camera but

I'm going to uncover the two side cameras just to see if there's like a

fail-safe that if one camera goes down the system

will still work at least for auto pilot might not in the future work for

autonomous driving or not I can't say autonomous self-driving but maybe still

work for cruise control and in standard autopilot so let's do that I'm going to

switch I'm going to uncover the two long-range cameras and I'm going to

cover up the center wide-angle camera and see if we'll still have autopilot

after that now just as a recap autopilot one uses a

single wide-angle camera for the whole system all right move out

on the road

holy crap I got autopilot

that calls for just a wee bit more testing wouldn't you say

and I got that covered fairly good hmm let me check the tape make sure it is in

fact blocking the whole view and I'll take another piece of tape just in case

and see if I can cover it more but don't know let's just try it first before I

make my conclusion

alright let's take another crack at it just to make sure to remove any doubt

well you saw because I got my little body camera there let's see what we got

here screen a little brighter it's one thing

I noticed autopilot to hardware is the autumn adjust brightness for the screen

works horrible

all right I got two fated lines one fate in line to again well how about that

it's quite possible that the car is using more than one forward-facing

camera for redundancy for autopilot well that's just freaking awesome all right

so I don't know where to go from here let's cover up all right I got the wide

angles covered completely let's cover up the long-range camera and see what we

got a little bit bigger piece of tape here

all right the only camera that's not blocked right now is the mid-range

camera

see what we get I'm still getting light showing up

how about that I hate that some

we're going to go from here a little bit more I'm going to block a

little marks just cover a little more but restrict that wide angle cameras

field of view a little more and then as the final test as the control we're

going to block all three cameras

all right I'm not pulling off the road before we zone let's do the long-range

only camera two more tests

and I still got you gotta be kidding me oh oh okay that's something that's

something I wasn't expecting okay discovery discovery and this

confirms Tesla's in fact using all three forward-facing cameras to make auto

pilot to the more reliable even though it's still not as reliable as autopilot

one point yet but maybe in the future so what am I gonna do to show this we use

the action camera of the body camera here and let's get back out on the road

and I'll show you

come on we're getting blinded by a little bit of

sunshine here

okay it sees the lines but I won't activate there here's what I want to

show you how the the autopilot lines don't appear to go as far as

the stop recording alright do-over we got a snap up shop I'm just

gonna take a quick picture

the lines for autopilot don't go as far as they normally would usually wouldn't

show the the two lines marking the lanes further down than it does now with the

two cameras blocked quite impressive

so let's pull in right here again and finally our control all right

all three cameras covered

oh it's giving me traffic we're cruise control no autopilot does not see any

lines at all

yep nothing so it's definitely able to use a combination of cameras

forward-facing cameras to allow the use of autopilot it's just not

using a single camera like autopilot one is so yeah we're not seeing any lines

now and I've noticed this too on my auto pilot one car my 90d if it can't see any

lines for a while such as you know say snow that has slid down onto the

windshield a little bit or something it will still let me use traffic aware

cruise control for quite some time before it will say reduce camera

visibility and then in that case it won't let me use auto auto pilot or ta

CC now one other thing it sometimes waits for if the radar detects something

is that the camera cannot see if it happens a little bit too much then it

will also disable so let's go around the corner here and we're gonna ta CCE

traveler cruise control right up behind the cars by the car

mailman there we go let's do the mail beautiful

okay so just from past experience the car should have slowed down when

approaching behind that mail truck a car parked on the side of the road if I'm

directly behind it it did not so it seems like the radars not even doing its

job even though even though the cameras can't see it the radar should have been

able to see the the mail truck there and and pretty much slow us down and stop

I've done that test myself on my 90 D with autopilot one and it was a pass so

conclusion awesome Tesla's using three cameras of different

focal lengths for autopilot on autopilot 2.0 air tube X vehicles the downside is

autopilot 2x still sucks and is still nowhere near as reliable as autopilot

one I've put on I've put on four hundred miles on this car on this 90 d since

dropping off my on this 100 decent dropping off my an IBD on last week

Friday in that time this car has done numerous sudden slamming on brakes for

absolutely nothing and very poor lane-keeping so a whole nother video on

that but I mean it's a start they're using three cameras so they got

redundancy at least now and three cameras showing different focal lengths

to give a wider fuel of view and different angles it's kind of sad

they're not using the side marker cameras yet but just the fact that

they're using three forwards it's still still pretty awesome so what are your

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