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Tesla is patenting a clever way to train Autopilot with augmented camera images
Tesla is currently tackling what could only be described as its biggest challenge to date. In his Master Plan, Part Deux, CEO Elon Musk envisioned a fleet of zero-emissions vehicles that are capable of driving on their own. Tesla has made steps towards this goal with improvements and refinements to its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving suites, but a lot of work remains to be done.
As noted by Tesla during its Autonomy Day presentation last year, attaining Full Self-Driving is largely a matter of training the neural networks used by the company. Tesla adopts what could be described as a somewhat organic approach for autonomy, with the company using a system that is centered on cameras and artificial intelligence — the equivalent of a human primarily using the eyes and brain to drive.
Tesla’s camera-centric approach may be quite controversial due to Elon Musk’s strong stance against LiDAR, but it is gaining ground, with other autonomous vehicle companies such as MobilEye developing FSD systems that rely primarily on visual data and a trained neural network. This approach does come with its challenges, as training neural networks requires tons of data. Tesla emphasized this point as much during its Autonomy Day presentation.
With this in mind, it is pertinent for the electric car maker to train its neural networks in a way that is as efficient as possible with zero compromises. To help accomplish this, Tesla seems to be looking into the utilization of augmented data, as described in a recently published patent titled “Systems and Methods for Training Machine Models with Augmented Data.”
Teslas are equipped with a suite of cameras that provide 360-degree visual coverage for the vehicle. In the patent’s description, Tesla noted that images used for neural network training are usually captured by various sensors, which, at times, have different characteristics. An example of this may lie in a Tesla’s three forward-facing cameras, each of which has a different field of view and range as the other two.
Tesla’s recent patent describes a system that allows the company to process these images in an optimized manner. Part of how this is done is through augmentation, which opens the doors to flexible and widespread neural network training, even when it involves vehicles equipped with differently-specced cameras. The electric car maker describes this process as such:
“Augmentation may provide generalization and greater robustness to the model prediction, particularly when images are clouded, occluded, or otherwise do not provide clear views of the detectable objects. These approaches may be particularly useful for object detection and in autonomous vehicles. This approach may also be beneficial for other situations in which the same camera configurations may be deployed to many devices. Since these devices may have a consistent set of sensors in a consistent orientation, the training data may be collected with a given configuration, a model may be trained with augmented data from the collected training data, and the trained model may be deployed to devices having the same configuration.”
Among the most notable aspects of Tesla’s recent patent is the use of “cutouts,” which allow Tesla’s neural networks to be trained using an optimized set of images. This was something that was discussed by former Tesla Autopilot engineer Eshak Mir in a Third Row Podcast interview, where he hinted at a system adopted in the electric car maker’s ongoing Autopilot rewrite that helped lay out “all the camera images” from a vehicle “into one view.” Such a process has the potential to help Tesla with 3D labeling, especially since the images used for neural network training are stitched together. Tesla’s patent seems to reference a system that is very similar to that described by the former Autopilot engineer.
“As a further example, the images may be augmented with a“cutout” function that removes a portion of the original image. The removed portion of the image may then be replaced with other image content, such as a specified color, blur, noise, or from another image. The number, size, region, and replacement content for cutouts may be varied and may be based on the label of the image (e.g., the region of interest in the image, or a bounding box for an object).”
Tesla is aiming to release a feature-complete version of its Full Self-Driving suite as soon as possible. Elon Musk remains optimistic about this, despite the company missing its initial timeline that was set at the end of 2019. That being said, Elon Musk did mention previously that Tesla is working on a foundational rewrite of Autopilot. In a tweet early last month, Musk stated that an essential part of the rewrite involves work on Autopilot’s core foundation code and 3D labeling. Once done, the CEO indicated that additional functionalities could be rolled out quickly. This recent patent, if any, seems to give a glimpse at how these improvements are being done.
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Tesla Model Y charges to bring strongest month in Australia in 2025
Tesla saw a strong month of sales in Australia, led by the dominating performance of the Model Y.
Tesla can thank the Model Y for bringing the company to its strongest monthly performance of the year in Australia.
In May, the Model Y accounted for 3,580 of the 3,897 total sales Tesla reported for the month in Australia. That’s a 9.3 percent increase from May 2024, while the Model Y had its best month since June 2024 with a 122.5 percent increase from the same month a year prior.
Additionally, it was the company’s best May in two years, when it sold 4,476 cars in May 2023.
It is a strong point in what has been a tough year for Tesla, but the difficulty can mostly be attributed to the switchover of production lines the company performed at each of its global production facilities.
It updated the Model Y earlier this year with a brand new front and rear fascia, as well as suspension improvements, and cabin modifications to provide a more comfortable ride.
Tesla’s Country Manager for Australia, Thom Drew, spoke to Drive in April about the Model Y and its influence on the company’s performance in Australia.
Tesla Cybertruck needs changes before Australia entry, but no guarantees it will arrive
He said the company saw tremendous interest in the Launch Edition of the new Model Y, which featured premium badging and some other novelty improvements compared to the Long Range All-Wheel-Drive that is available already.
Drew said:
“When we launched orders back in January, we had an enormous response to the launch edition. We’ve only just started test drives in the last couple of weeks. The boat’s been slowly making its way around the country. And now we’re seeing that kind of second wave come through, and seeing a lot of interest. I think we had a record test drive week, last week, in our entire history. So yeah, [we’re] seeing some really strong interest.”
Tesla is hoping to see improvements in sales performance across the globe, but it is primarily focused on the rollout of the Robotaxi platform, which is set for release on June 12.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk explains Tesla’s domestic battery strategy
Elon Musk responded to a new note from an analyst that highlighted Tesla’s battery strategy.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained the automaker’s strategy for building batteries from top to bottom in a domestic setting as the company continues to alleviate its reliance on Chinese materials, something other companies are too dependent on.
With the Trump Administration, it is no secret that the prioritization of U.S.-built products, including sourcing most of the materials from American companies, is at the forefront of its strategy.
The goal is to become less dependent on foreign products, which would, in theory, bolster the U.S. economy by creating more jobs and having less reliance on foreign markets, especially China, to manufacture the key parts of things like cars and tech.
In a note from Alexander Potter, an analyst for the firm Piper Sandler, Tesla’s strategy regarding batteries specifically is broken down.
Potter says Tesla is “the only car company that is trying to source batteries, at scale, without relying on China.”
He continues:
“Eventually, Tesla will be making its own cathode active materials, refining its own lithium, building its own anodes, coating its own electrodes, assembling its own cells, and selling its own cars; No other US company can make similar claims.”
Musk, who spent time within the Trump White House through his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said that Tesla is doing the “important” work of localizing supply chains as the risks that come with being too dependent on foreign entities could be detrimental to a company, especially one that utilizes many parts and supplies that are manufactured mostly in China.
It is important, albeit extremely hard work, to localize supply chains to mitigate geopolitical risk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025
Tesla has done a lot of work to source and even manufacture its own batteries within the United States, a project that has been in progress for several years but will pay dividends in the end.
According to a 2023 Nikkei analysis, Tesla’s battery material suppliers were dominated by Chinese companies. At the time, a whopping 39 percent of the company’s cell materials came from Chinese companies.
This number is decreasing as it operates its own in-house cell and material production projects, like its lithium refinery in Texas.
It also wants to utilize battery manufacturers that have plans to build cells in the U.S.
Panasonic, for example, is building a facility in Kansas that will help Tesla utilize domestically-manufactured cells for its cars.
Elon Musk
Tesla stock: Morgan Stanley says eVTOL is calling Elon Musk for new chapter
Could Tesla dive into the eVTOL market? Morgan Stanley takes a look.
Tesla shares are up nearly 20 percent in the past month, but that is not stopping the only trillion-dollar automaker from attracting all types of new potential sectors to disrupt, at least from an investor and analyst perspective.
Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas is not one to shy away from some ideas that many investors would consider far-fetched. In a recent note, Jonas brought up some interesting discussion regarding Tesla’s potential in the eVTOL industry, and how he believes CEO Elon Musk’s answer was not convincing enough to put it off altogether.
Tesla’s Elon Musk says electric planes would be ‘fun problem to work on’
Musk said that Tesla was “stretched pretty thin” when a question regarding a plane being developed came up. Jonas said:
“In our opinion, that’s a decidedly different type of answer. Is Tesla an aviation/defense-tech company in auto/consumer clothing?”
Musk has been pretty clear about things that Tesla won’t do. Although he has not unequivocally denied aviation equipment, including planes and drones, as he has with things like motorcycles, it does not seem like something that is on Musk’s mind.
Instead, he has focused the vast majority of his time at Tesla on vehicle autonomy, AI, and robotics, things he sees as the future.
Tesla and China, Robotics, Pricing
Morgan Stanley’s note also discussed Tesla’s prowess in its various areas of expertise, how it will keep up with Chinese competitors, as there are several, and the race for affordable EVs in the country.
Tesla is the U.S.’s key to keeping up with China
“In our view, Tesla’s expertise in manufacturing, data collection, robotics/ physical AI, energy, supply chain, and infrastructure are more critical than ever before to put the US on an even footing with China in embodied AI,” Jonas writes.
It is no secret that Tesla is the leader in revolutionizing things. To generalize, the company has truly dipped its finger in all the various pies, but it is also looked at as a leader in tech, which is where Chinese companies truly have an advantage.
Robotics and the ‘Humanoid Olympics’
Jonas mentioned China’s recent showcasing of robots running half marathons and competing in combat sports as “gamification of robotic innovation.”
Tesla could be at the forefront of the effort to launch something similar, as the analyst predicts the U.S. version could be called “Humanoid Ninja Warrior.”
Pricing
Tesla is set to launch affordable models before the end of Q2, leaving this month for the company to release some details.
While the pricing of those models remains in limbo with the $7,500 tax credit likely disappearing at the end of 2024, companies in China have been able to tap incredibly aggressive pricing models. Jonas, for example, brings up the BYD Seagull, which is priced at just about $8,000.
Tesla can tap into an incredibly broader market if it can manage to bring pricing to even below $30,000, which is where many hope the affordable models end up.
During the Q3 2024 Earnings Call, Musk said that $30,000 is where it would be with the tax credit:
“Yeah. It will be like with incentive. So, 30K, which is kind of a key threshold.”
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