Discuss: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

[Not a Tesla App]

Tesla's Autowipers face challenges without rain sensors. Vision struggles to detect water, causing issues in light rain. Future hardware upgrades may help.… Read More

Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

Tesla's Autowipers face challenges without rain sensors. Vision struggles to detect water, causing issues in light rain. Future hardware upgrades may help.

www.notateslaapp.com

 

[K.I.T.T.]

I'm afraid that the explanation of the problem is worse than the problem itself. The reason why Tesla cameras don't detect rain well is absolutely unrelated to the windshield coverage.

How do you think other cars work? It's all bases on probability: if the small portion covered by the sensor has rain, than chances are the whole glass has it. That's in fact the reason why all cars won't detect a deliberate spill on the bottom of the windshield, but get unnecessarily "agitated" by a dirty top of the windshield.

The difference between Tesla and other carmakers is all about focus: too much economy! How can you achieve both infinite focus to handle FSD necessity and detect objects as near as on the windshield itself, with a single camera? A drop of water will be perceived as a blur at best. And anything that blurs the image, even some glare, will trigger..

There's little they can do without adding a camera.

 

[EVSteveA]

I'm afraid that the explanation of the problem is worse than the problem itself. The reason why Tesla cameras don't detect rain well is absolutely untelated to the windshield coverage.

How do you think other cars work? It's all bases on probability: if the small portion covered by the sensor has rain, than chances are the whole glass has it. That's in fact the reason why all cars won't detect a deliberate spill on the bottom of the windshield, but get unnecessarily "agitated" by a dirty top of the windshield.

The difference between Tesla and other carmakers is all about focus: too much economy! How can you achieve both infinite focus to handle FSD necessity and detect objects as near as on the windshield itself, with a single camera? A drop of water will be perceived as a blur at best. And anything that blurs the image, even some glare, will trigger..

There's little they can do without adding a camera.

Too bothered satisfying the US market with FSD rather than competing with the worldwide market. FAD is one thing sort the simple things first like Autopark for the rest of the world

 

[Legendary]

IMO it's such a pity that they went out of their way to introduce a light strip inside the car to make it look "prettier" while not being willing to invest in a rain sensor...

 

[joe_apxc]

For not having a rain sensor, the detection does quite a good job in my opinion. For me its working 99% of the time, only having a couple of dry wipes every now and then. But when it actually rains, the speed of the wiper is almost everytime good. Since the 2024.14 update its even easier to intervene with the right wipe speed if neccessary, so its good for me. But i also dont understand why you save little money on a rain sensor and instead pay engineers to put many many hours in a rather "small" software feature. Cant imagine that the cost of the engineers working on camera solution is lower than having this sensor in your fleet.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

Exactly. "don't fix if it ain't broken", should have been the underlying principle avoiding the two biggest headaches for Tesla: windshield wipers and park. Vision is not the answer to everything, at least not with the current hardware.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

For not having a rain sensor, the detection does quite a good job in my opinion. For me its working 99% of the time, only having a couple of dry wipes every now and then. But when it actually rains, the speed of the wiper is almost everytime good. Since the 2024.14 update its even easier to intervene with the right wipe speed if neccessary, so its good for me. But i also dont understand why you save little money on a rain sensor and instead pay engineers to put many many hours in a rather "small" software feature. Cant imagine that the cost of the engineers working on camera solution is lower than having this sensor in your fleet.

The odd thing, it worked almost fine for my also until 2024 updates, when they supposedly "fixed" the issue.

With one notable exception: I used to park it under trees, and when resin spilled, it was a nightmare whenever I activated autopilot, because obviously it relies on... Vision. Hence continuous unnecessary wipes on a dry windshield, until I parked and manually cleaned the camera spot.

The whole concept is flawed: you need the camera to be clean? You keep IT clean by other means, applying spray etc., like all cars with a front camera, not bothering the whole windshield.

But after 2024.x, the last months in my "old" blackie M3 and all the drives in the new highland, I had to disable it and go manual all the time.

 

[Legendary]

On my end the performance has been absolutely terrible lately.
The system got triggered very often during the day even when the weather was as dry as it could be (I must stress out that my windshield is clean).
When there was heavy rain the system got triggered wayyyyyyyy too late (I had already lost almost all visibility when it got triggered, and even then it was very slow and not enough to attain sufficient visibility)
So I ended up disabling the damn thing and I only put it back when it's raining

 

[K.I.T.T.]

It just doesn't work when it should and it does when it shouldn't. It's an epic fail, in other words, almost calling for a class action to retrofit a real sensor.

 

[Not a Tesla App]

I'm afraid that the explanation of the problem is worse than the problem itself. The reason why Tesla cameras don't detect rain well is absolutely unrelated to the windshield coverage.

How do you think other cars work? It's all bases on probability: if the small portion covered by the sensor has rain, than chances are the whole glass has it. That's in fact the reason why all cars won't detect a deliberate spill on the bottom of the windshield, but get unnecessarily "agitated" by a dirty top of the windshield.

The difference between Tesla and other carmakers is all about focus: too much economy! How can you achieve both infinite focus to handle FSD necessity and detect objects as near as on the windshield itself, with a single camera? A drop of water will be perceived as a blur at best. And anything that blurs the image, even some glare, will trigger..

There's little they can do without adding a camera.

You're absolutely right, its more of a problem of focus rather than view. Although if Tesla had a larger view, they could probably do a better job as well.

We touched on the focal length part in the article, but we updated the article to focus (ha) on that a little more. We also added images of the windshield with water droplets on it and what the cameras see - with the droplets on and after a wipe.

Thanks for the corrections.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

You're welcome, hope this stimulates Tesla to come up with a real fix. All they can do for the moment are workarounds at best, without changing the hardware. Which seems quite weird, the first thing they should have done without reinventing the wheel is to reverse-engineer what others do good, if they didn't want to incorporate third-party solutions. Same with the park assist. It's incredibly much easier to park our BMW in tight spots with eagle-eye view and a real front bumper camera than the Tesla. Now that EU carmakers are picking up, Tesla will have to catch up, because being able to park without scratches and damages is a "hygiene factor" exceeding all the other benefits that they can bring to the table.

 

[zroger73]

The odd thing, it worked almost fine for my also until 2024 updates, when they supposedly "fixed" the issue.

Same here.

In April 2023, I took delivery of a new Model Y that came with 2022.x software. For ten months before I updated from 2023.44.30.8 to 2024.2.2.1, the auto wipers worked 99.9% as well as my other vehicles with dedicated rain sensors. I did not experience the poor performance that I heard others complaining about.

After updating to 2024.2.2.1 in February 2024, I began to experience dry wipes for the first time which became more frequent in 2024.2.7 and have not improved with several updates since then including 2024.14.8.

• Ideally, I would like the auto wiper operation to return to how it was in 2023.44.30.8 and prior.
• Otherwise, I would like the wipers to remain off and not keep reverting to auto every time TACC, AS, or FSD is engaged.

Curiously, the auto wipers worked much better (though still not as well as the pre-2024 update) during my one-month trial of FSD in April 2024.

These dry wipes are frustrating, annoying, damaging, and embarrassing.

In addition to the dry wipes, the auto wipers will often not wipe when my visibility is almost completely obscured.

If Tesla can't or won't fix this, just give me full manual control of the damned wipers.

 

[K.I.T.T.]

We actually have "full manual control" already, unless autopilot is engaged, sees a blur and... same as above.

 

[zroger73]

We actually have "full manual control" already, unless autopilot is engaged, sees a blur and... same as above.

"Full manual control" to me would be that when I turn the wipers off they stay off until I decide to turn them back on.

As it is now, the wipers temporarily revert to auto every time TACC/AS/FSD is engaged and I will almost always get dry wipes until or unless I override them and turn them back off while TACC/AS/FSD is engaged.

The dry wipes are so frequent that I rarely use TACC/AS/FSD anymore and when I do, it has become a two-step process (engage TACC then turn the wipers back off).