Auto Wipers

[HankE-LA]

I picked up my MY 4 days ago. Due to screwed up local laws had to take delivery over 600 miles (1000km) away. On that road trip back home two things I noticed were completely broken. Basic autopilot (TACC) is useless on slightly curvy two lane roads. Phantom braking and lane departure warnings for no reason. The other is auto wipers being totally useless. Turning on when it’s bright and sunny. Not coming on when it’s raining, like really raining. Ended up putting the wiper icon in the app tray for easy access.

Come on Tesla. Hire a couple intern programmers. If they can fix the auto wiper problem, they’re hired. If not, they’re fired.

Yesterday gave the wife a drive to get her familiar with the car. After showing her the basics of how to drive the car I showed her some of the toybox features. Next question was did I have any issues on the road trip home. Mentioned the auto wipers and autopilot issues.

“So you have romance mode but the auto wipers don’t work?”

Correct. Welcome to Tesla.

 

[drb3333]

I picked up my MY 4 days ago. Due to screwed up local laws had to take delivery over 600 miles (1000km) away. On that road trip back home two things I noticed were completely broken. Basic autopilot (TACC) is useless on slightly curvy two lane roads. Phantom braking and lane departure warnings for no reason....

What was the curvy two lane road? I would like to look it up.

 

[HankE-LA]

What was the curvy two lane road? I would like to look it up.

FL highway 98 from Pensacola to the supercharger in Gulf Breeze.

 

[Lu-Tze]

I set the left scroll wheel up for wipers. It works pretty well for me, though yes Auto could be improved somewhat

Imho, you're too kind... ime, auto-wipe is very, very poor. Way too many false-positives and false-negatives.
Incomparable to the rainsensor in various Toyota/Lexus cars I drove over the past 15 years (this worked so well, that in the rare situations I wanted to manually control the wipers, I always had to re-discover how the stalk worked exactly).

Just last week I had a nice empty stretch of road ahead of me so I could see if auto-wipe would ever kick in, in mild-to-serious drizzle.
Depressingly, all that happened was once the windshield was near-opaque with water, TACC threw a message something like "Autopilot will reduce speed because of poor visibility."

Well... duhh....

 

[Hellpops]

2024.8.4 dropped last night, dry wipes introduce in 2024.2.7 are still there

 

[Pianewman]

Still on 2024.2.7.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I drove in a gentle mist for several miles, residential area, wipers on AUTO. Windshield completely covered in mist/droplets. Complete coverage.

Wipers never engaged. Not once. Parked/left the car, ran errands...twice. Started up again. NO AUTO WIPER function, but the other wiper functions remained.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

They deffo don’t work very well in UK drizzle - which has been 95% of my driving conditions in Feb-March 2024

Yes my sister told me it's been very mild and pleasant so far this year

 

[Pianewman]

Again, today, AUTO wipers would NOT function. Very weird.

 

[Resist]

Tesla's auto wipers are the worst in the auto industry. People have complained about it for years and they still can't seem to fix it using vision with software. Do we really need auto wipers anyway? Just bring back intermittent wipers that we manually adjust.

 

[ImperfectTes]

Mine were fine for 3 years until a recent update. Now they have come on every commute the past 2 weeks while it’s been clear and sunny out. Whatever they did made it a lot worse.

Same here. It’s driving me wild. Don’t even try using the windshield washer. It never stops wiping now. They need to rollback whatever code updated the wipers.

 

[andaconda]

Tesla's auto wipers are the worst in the auto industry. People have complained about it for years and they still can't seem to fix it using vision with software. Do we really need auto wipers anyway? Just bring back intermittent wipers that we manually adjust.

It's easy enough to control the wiper manually - that's what I have had to do after the last few updates. Press the washer button once, the wiper function pops up and then chose one of several options at the bottom of the screen. It may not be a perfect setting, but you can usually get the proper speed for the conditions.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

Still not as easy as every other vehicle I've ever driven (that had a stalk)

I understand the minimalist concept and how the M3 was supposed to be a fleet rental car and you'd have a software profile to adjust everything regardless of which vehicle you took, but seriously, take it to the logical conclusion and do away with EVERYTHING ... put it ALL on the touch screen: Steering, brakes, "gear" selection etc. They'd obviously never do that, so there's a good middle ground ... a dividing line, but why do the wiper controls have to be on the wrong side of that divide?

 

[hmadsen]

Tesla's auto wipers are the worst in the auto industry. People have complained about it for years and they still can't seem to fix it using vision with software. Do we really need auto wipers anyway? Just bring back intermittent wipers that we manually adjust.

That might be because Tesla (To my knowledge) is the only manufacturer that does not use a dedicated rain sensor, but instead just use the front facing cameras and analyse the picture to try and "guess" if the windscreen needs wiping.

There might be a reason, they made dedicated rain detection sensors for this task.

 

[Resist]

That might be because Tesla (To my knowledge) is the only manufacturer that does not use a dedicated rain sensor, but instead just use the front facing cameras and analyse the picture to try and "guess" if the windscreen needs wiping.

There might be a reason, they made dedicated rain detection sensors for this task.

That's my point. Tesla could have used a technology that is proven to work well, just like with ultrasonic sensors. But instead they keep pushing vision only, which would be fine if the software worked, but it's just not there yet. So instead of frustrating owners, use tech that actually works and when they get the software right, then switch the hardware.

 

[hmadsen]

That's my point. Tesla could have used a technology that is proven to work well, just like with ultrasonic sensors. But instead they keep pushing vision only, which would be fine if the software worked, but it's just not there yet. So instead of frustrating owners, use tech that actually works and when they get the software right, then switch the hardware.

I agree, but on the other hand, it would be very hard / difficult to add an actual rain sensor to the car now.

That being said, the obvious solution would have been to use a rain sensor until they were able to make something just as good with the camera

I highly doubt they can....At this point there are only 2 options.....

1. It is not possible to make something as good as a dedicated rain sensor, but they try to refine it as best as possible

2. It is possible, but the software development team is just utterly incompetent.

I dont see any third options..

But not removing something until the alternative works is not how tesla does things, as witnessed by the USS debacle, they removed the USS over a year ago and it is only just now, they are beginning to roll out software that can do self parking again and the summon and smart summon features are still missing, even though they still charge people full price for the EAP / FSD packages.

 

[Alonzo]

when they get the software right, then switch the hardware.

Therein lies the problem. In order to "get the software right", Tesla prefers to put it out there for their test group (Tesla owners) guinea pigs to develop. That's Tesla's whole approach on everything, throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks.

A perfect example of that is FSD. Hundreds of thousands of drivers out there pouring millions of bits of data back to Tesla's computers so they can figure out how it's suppose to work. The sad part is that a large number of owners are paying thousands of dollars extra for the privilege of participating in this experiment.

 

[hmadsen]

Therein lies the problem. In order to "get the software right", Tesla prefers to put it out there for their test group (Tesla owners) guinea pigs to develop. That's Tesla's whole approach on everything, throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks.

A perfect example of that is FSD. Hundreds of thousands of drivers out there pouring millions of bits of data back to Tesla's computers so they can figure out how it's suppose to work. The sad part is that a large number of owners are paying thousands of dollars extra for the privilege of participating in this experiment.

To some extend this is how a lot of tech works nowadays, i can live with my phone having a small issue for 2 weeks after it gets upgraded to the latest version of android for example.

What i dont understand is Tesla's mindset.

If they get an idea, they seemingly start off by implementing it, hardware wise and only then do they at all start trying to actually write the software.

I mean....It has taken them a year to get auto-park back into cars after they dropped the USS. If they had made a mostly working software, that needed some refinement it would be one thing, but to remove USS and then wait a full year before re-implementing a feature is just silly.

 

[skriefal]

Mine were fine for 3 years until a recent update. Now they have come on every commute the past 2 weeks while it’s been clear and sunny out. Whatever they did made it a lot worse.

I've noticed the same. The auto wipers were disappointing before - but tolerable. Now they're bad. Laughably bad. Or would be laughably bad if they weren't so annoying. For the first time ever I've turned auto wipers off - and left them off. I'm not certain when they degraded to this point. Maybe with 2024.2.x?

Tesla - please just use a proper, reliable rain sensor. AI is not the answer to every problem.

 

[Hellpops]

I've noticed the same. The auto wipers were disappointing before - but tolerable. Now they're bad. Laughably bad. Or would be laughably bad if they weren't so annoying. For the first time ever I've turned auto wipers off - and left them off. I'm not certain when they degraded to this point. Maybe with 2024.2.x?

Tesla - please just use a proper, reliable rain sensor. AI is not the answer to every problem.

For 3 years auto wipers were pretty good, then 2024.2.6 arrived and suddenly rain went undetected. Then 2024.2.7 dropped and introduced dry wipes. I thought maybe 2024.2.8 would find the Goldilock's point, but we're still stuck on dry wipes which forces me to turn auto wipers off. And now Elon is forcing new buyers to "experience" FSD? Maybe he should just demo auto wipers and watch the response...

 

[Resist]

And now Elon is forcing new buyers to "experience" FSD? Maybe he should just demo auto wipers and watch the response...

I'm sure new buyers won't be forced to experience FSD. More likely they will be offered it. What will they do cancel your delivery if you don't want to try it out? I doubt it. But even as good as FSD beta v12 is, I wouldn't pay $12,000 for it. Autopilot is good enough for the majority of people. With that said, I have FSD but it only cost $2,000 when I bought it, plus $5,000 for the Enhanced Autopilot.