3D Parking Assist Goes Live
On December 15th, Tesla Full Self Driving Beta Testers took to social media with the release notes for the company’s holiday update to their vehicle software. Among a bunch of precision fixes and latency reductions to the local network was a feature that Tesla drivers have been eagerly waiting for: 3D Parking Visualization.
A parking assistance mode that renders a three-dimensional view from a bird’s-eye perspective, Tesla’s version of this feature makes use of their vehicles’ camera array and other sensors to construct a live and constantly updating model of the driver’s surroundings.
Tesla’s Head of Autopilot software Ashok Elluswamy was also active on X to give some extra context for how the system operates. Using Tesla’s Occupancy Network, obstacles around the car are modeled in real time by its cameras - allowing for not only a smooth projection of anything in the vehicle’s way, but also the prediction of lines for parking spaces and lanes.
Unfortunately, owners of older Teslas that are equipped with Ultrasonic Sensors will not have access to this new visualizer - yet. Because it relies so heavily on the more current camera technology, it’s not something that can be readily made available to users without them - but Elluswamy confirmed that the feature will be coming to older models, even though he didn’t say when.
The problem there of course is that we can’t know how long these users will have to wait. CEO Elon Musk originally said that this 3D vectored, Birdseye view was coming to FSD users way back in 2020 - over three years ago now.
Adding a little insult to injury, several other vehicle brands with parking assist features already had this sort of 3D visualization technology, so Tesla’s a few years behind the competition here - even if their version has higher fidelity and better detection.
But what matters is that FSD users have it now, and that it’s working with that new Occupancy Network Tesla has been working hard on - it even got here just in time for some late holiday shopping! Happy parking, everyone!