Tesla has begun rolling out software update 2023.6.9 to vehicles not participating in FSD Beta testing. Along with it, customers have access to Tesla Vision Park Assist, which relies only on camera “vision” and does not use ultrasonic sensors (USS). This feature was first seen in FSD Beta v11.3.2 code last week, but previously, Tesla owners have not provided public feedback on its operation. On March 25, Tesla officially announced the rollout of the feature, and within a few hours of that, the first reviews began to appear.
Rolling out Tesla Vision Park Assist—utilizing vehicle cameras & our vision-based occupancy network to provide distance estimates to objects 360° surrounding your Tesla pic.twitter.com/8EhWbMD10K
— Tesla (@Tesla) March 24, 2023
In the fall, Tesla stopped equipping its cars with USS, which was not to the liking of car owners. Without this equipment, users began to have difficulty parking vehicles in tight spaces, as there was nothing to measure the distance to nearby objects. After a few months, Tesla began rolling out a feature that replaces USS. In addition, it will give more information about the environment of the car than was given by USS.
According to the release notes, Tesla Vision Park Assist “uses the occupancy network to predict high-definition outlines of objects 360 degrees around the car.” The video shared by owners shows the car giving a warning if there is some kind of obstacle next to it. @EVBaymax/Twitter also measured the actual distance to the obstacle with what his car determined, and it turned out to be pretty accurate.
This is after being parked for a while, interesting to see how park assist takes a bit to load previous data from before it was parked. Still really impressive work from the @Tesla team pic.twitter.com/LONqouXp85
— kEVin (@EVBaymax) March 24, 2023
@teslaisntaflex/Twitter has also had a positive experience with Park Assist. He noted that the feature works fairly accurately for the most part, and is very careful with curbs when reversing. In addition, he noted that, in his opinion, Tesla Vision Park Assist gives a more accurate visualization than the pop-up curves on USS cars.
Park Assist in the 2023 Model 3 without USS.
— Brandon (@teslaisntaflex) March 24, 2023
For the most part it’s pretty accurate. When backing up it is pretty cautious with curbs. I like it so far! pic.twitter.com/mUbzkW84Nq
@AZohrri/Twitter also commented that the feature works well, especially since it is a pretty early version. While the company still has a lot of work to do, he is pleased that Park Assist “was decent for the most part.”
Using @Tesla Vision only, park assist isn’t too bad in this very early version of it. Got a “park assist unavailable” warning once, but it was decent for the most part. @DirtyTesLa @DriveTeslaca @NotATeslaApp @TeslaOwnersONT pic.twitter.com/pPQiRbGBkx
— Adil Zohrri (@AZohrri) March 26, 2023
There is a big difference between the USS version of Park Assist and the machine vision solution, Tesla Vision Park Assist. Whereas USS measured the distance to nearby objects only in front and behind the car, vision-based Park Assist “sees” around the car in 360 degrees. Although the company still has some work to do, over time they will improve it, making it an indispensable parking assistant.
© 2023, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
_____________________________
We appreciate your readership! Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Article edited by @SmokeyShorts; follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
