Tesla revealed their current production vehicles are equipped with the necessary hardware for autonomous driving capabilities.
They mention:
- 8 surround cameras providing 360 degree visibility around the car
- 12 ultrasonic sensors
- 1 forward-facing radar unit
- 1 on-board computer
Cameras
- Wide forward camera
- Main forward camera
- Narrow forward camera
- Driver’s side rearward looking side camera
- Passenger’s side rearward looking side camera
- Driver’s side forward looking side camera
- Passenger’s side forward looking side camera
- Rear View camera
Camera type, location, FOV, distance and use:
| Type | Mounting Location | Field of View | Max Distance | Function | |
| 1 | Wide forward camera | Interior: Triple camera, above rear-view mirror | 120 degree fish-eye | 60m (~197 ft.) | Captures traffic lights, obstacles cutting into the path of travel and objects at close range. Particularly useful in urban, low speed maneuvering |
| 2 | Main forward camera | Interior: Triple camera, above rear-view mirror | Unknown, assumed ~50 degree | 150m (~492 ft.) | Covers a broad spectrum of use cases |
| 3 | Narrow forward camera | Interior: Triple camera, above rear-view mirror | Unknown, assumed ~25 degree | 250m (~820 ft.) | Provides a focused, long-range view of distant features. Useful in high-speed operation |
| 4 | Driver’s side rearward looking side camera | Exterior: fender badge mounted | Unknown | 100m (~328 ft.) | Monitor rear blind spots important for safely changing lanes and merging into traffic |
| 5 | Passenger’s side rearward looking side camera | Exterior: fender badge mounted | Unknown | 100m (~328 ft.) | Monitor rear blind spots important for safely changing lanes and merging into traffic |
| 6 | Driver’s side forward looking side camera | Exterior: B pillar mounted | 90 degree | 80m (~262 ft.) | Detect cars unexpectedly entering your lane and additional safety when entering intersections with limited visibility |
| 7 | Passenger’s side forward looking side camera | Exterior: B pillar mounted | 90 degree | 80m (~262 ft.) | Detect cars unexpectedly entering your lane and additional safety when entering intersections with limited visibility |
| 8 | Rear View camera | Exterior: Hatch latch area mounted | Unknown | 50m (~164 ft.) | Backing up safely, contributing member of the Autopilot hardware suite, useful when performing complex parking maneuvers |
Note: locations correspond to Model X locations
Radar
The forward looking radar’s range falls between the Narrow and Main camera’s distance with a max range of 160m (~525ft).
Ultrasound
These are the shortest range sensors, with a max distance of 8m (~26ft)
Computer
NVIDIA Drive PX 2 with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation unit in Tesla vehicles
Sources:
https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
Tesla Motors’ Self-Driving Car “Supercomputer” Powered by NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 Technology