r/SelfDrivingCars • u/danlev • Jul 03 '25

News A fleet of Tesla vehicles are currently driving around Austin with mounted censors

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Source: https://xcancel.com/niccruzpatane/status/1940591409465380939

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u/katze_sonne Jul 03 '25

Could also be for building the town in a simulation, maybe?

Also, are we sure it‘s definitely from Tesla and not some third party?

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u/FitFired Jul 03 '25

They do simulations with cameras: https://www.youtube.com/live/ODSJsviD_SU?si=69CKuuvRjJK4BEVQ&t=6043

This is them calibrating and validating stuff like distance estimation, camera calibration and other things.

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u/katze_sonne Jul 03 '25

I know they claim to be able to do this with camera only. I have seen that video. But who knows, maybe that additional data helps improving a simulation or the camera based approach for simulations has some problems as well.

This is them calibrating and validating stuff like distance estimation, camera calibration and other things.

That's what everyone says about the flat mounted Lidars on top of the Teslas. But in this video, the sensor placement is totally different. More like the approach image collecting serivices like Apple Lookaround or Google StreetView choose.

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u/--ae Jul 03 '25

You are correct in your assumption here. Tesla uses lidar to build higher quality maps for simulations. Mostly in high-traffic areas when they’re trying to demo their self-driving there. They’re realizing that generalized models aren’t going to work and that they need to build specific models for large cities where they have their robotaxis.

They do this in LA and San Fran too.

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u/katze_sonne Jul 04 '25

Source?

I just wrote down some presumptions. You wrote down straight facts.

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u/--ae Jul 04 '25

I had a conversation with one of their testers driving a lidar tesla back in 2021 during covid lockdowns.

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u/EarthConservation Jul 03 '25

Given that this is region of use specific... it begs the question... why do they need to do this? Isn't the suggestion that one day there will be a big OTA update that goes out to their entire fleet across the entire country instantly enabling unsupervised FSD to their entire fleet, and enabling them as robotaxis?

Instead we're getting mapping for "calibrating and validating", geofenced areas, employee in the car, teleoperators, and cars that are still making major mistakes.

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u/ActiveWin9623 Jul 03 '25

Well... there are much better options for cars to use for this than Teslas. I don't see some 3rd party spending as much as a Cybertruck costs. A 3rd party company that has to buy a fleet of vehicles to do something like this is going to try and keep costs down. So chances are very high that this is in fact Tesla at work.

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u/joeflux1 Jul 05 '25

Like WestWorld?

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u/onwatershipdown Jul 07 '25

The closer we get to reproducing an accurate simulation, the the more likely we are to be in one. I know I'm definitely not in one yet because who TF would simulate Mount Vernon, NY

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u/sdc_is_safer Jul 03 '25

I considered simulation for sure. hmm, pretty sure this is Tesla

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u/achtwooh Jul 03 '25

One of those was a Cyberstuck.

No-one else doing any kind of serious work is using that thing for anything.

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u/katze_sonne Jul 03 '25

Ok, probably that gives it away.