But I also have a huge problem keeping the headlights (and thus tail lights) on when it is misty and overcast. My auto wipers don't wipe frequently enough and the auto lights turn off. It is very annoying, and using the screen for headlights is pure crap.
I've actually gotten to the point where I can get the headlights on with the screen quite quickly, but it is indeed a terrible and erroneous design decision. I told Tesla before the car was manufactured that they needed physical headlight controls. They didn't listen, as is typical for the company.
The wipers are actually awful in every way; worst wipers of any car I've ever driven, just barely fit for purpose. Auto-sensing is completely useless, of course. But the high and low speeds really don't work very well for many types of weather conditions either. I feel like they only tested them in California or something.
It's such a small thing, and yet it's so annoying. Hopefully for future model years Tesla can come up with a better wiper design, ones which can:
- clean off light rain without sticking and squeaking
- not get glued to the windshield by ice while parked
- successfully clean off a sticky snow/freezing rain combo (I had to get out and manually clean the window repeatedly on one of the legs of my Michigan trip)
- clean the entire visibility-valuable portion of the windshield (they leave really large blind spots, both on the left and on the right)
Some of this might be alleviated if the defroster worked better. It's been improved since the original (with one hardware and at least one software change), and now it basically works, but it's still pretty mediocre.
California designers, what are you gonna do.