Tesla Removes Ultrasonic Sensors From Vehicles, Temporarily Disables Autopilot Features

No matter what car you drive, it’s still not smart enough to get you from point A to point B all on its own. Arguably, Tesla is closer to letting you safely nap behind the wheel than any other automaker, but now its vehicles are going to be less smart in the short term. Tesla has announced that it’s dropping ultrasonic sensors from the Model 3 and Model Y, and its more expensive cars will lose them starting next year. And that means Tesla has to temporarily disable some Autopilot features.

Before this change, all Tesla vehicles had ultrasonic sensors (USS) in the front and rear bumpers. Tesla was proud of these sensors when it started using them, pointing out it developed a new kind of USS that could see through the car body for a more pleasing aesthetic. This hardware provided precise distance data at short-range, making them ideal proximity sensors.

New Model 3 and Model Y vehicles rolling off production lines in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Taiwan will now lack ultrasonic sensors. Enhanced camera-based Tesla Vision will take over the same tasks, but it won’t be ready immediately. That means Tesla is going to have to disable several features, including Park Assist, Autopark, Summon, and Smart Summon. Tesla didn’t say how much it’s saving by not using the ultrasonic sensors, but it must be significant if it’s willing to stop supporting some of its trademark features while it works on new computer vision tech.

Those who already have their Model 3 and Y won’t have to worry about losing features, but new vehicles will be limited. Tesla says that will change in the “near future” as it works on those Tesla Vision enhancements. The features will come back in a series of over-the-air updates. Presumably, this work will be completed by the time its more expensive vehicles lose the ultrasonic sensors next year.

There’s precedent for this decision — Tesla removed radar from the Model 3 and Model Y in 2021. Radar was used to monitor distances to nearby vehicles, making it important for autosteer and adaptive cruise control. In its place, it implemented Tesla Vision based on Nvidia’s CUDA parallel computing platform. It made the same swap in the more expensive Model S and Model X this year.

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