Tesla heating the front camera but not the radar basically disables the system making it unusable. This radar failure was roughly 5 min after leaving a parking garage. The still was later on in the day after some errands and things.
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Yep, apparently the non-heated bumper on top of the AP2 radar (and Model X AP1) is really, really susceptible to killing the show. Model S AP1 design was better apparently in this regard.
Regarding winter driving, I was testing my AP2 (2017.46.8) today on a highway in snowing weather - first time really with this car in this weather - just a pretty short trip and it seemed to be a bit less sure than usual, but OK. Until after maybe 3-4 minutes of driving the two red hands appear on the screen with an audio signal and both TACC/AP turn off.
My first thought is "did I miss hands on wheel nags" (both hands were on wheel but sometimes it misses that), but no, it reported Front Radar Visibility Reduced and kept TACC/AP off for the rest of the trip.
The front of the car looked pretty much like Bjorn's when I got home, less bad, but similarly covered... The lack of a heated front really seeming to "pay dividend"... The weather was nothing special, this really does not bode well for winter use? I've used adaptive cruise since 2006 or so and usually only one or two issues every winter... never on the first day of snow driving...
Bjørn Nyland on Twitter
Yah, so 5 min of snow in non freezing conditions is a complete design fail. Someone should build a retrofit kit to heat the area around the radar...
I can only dream... How quickly the car goes from technological marvel to beater from the 1970's. A few flakes of snow.
Hmms? I think they are well aware the radar doesn’t function in the snow. It’s fairly obvious, but I’ll reach out to the SC.
Why would you want to use a dummy cruise when the road conditions are slippery with sleet? Absolutely the wrong thing to do.
It very well may be, but I've been driving in that kind of weather conditions for over twenty winters with cruise. Force of habit, I guess.
Because you can set dummy cruise to say 15 mph and not accidently over accelerate and swerve off the road, think of it like a fail safe.
It is not, only if used improperly. It allows you to limit your speed given a known road surface condition and stopping time. That may be 45 mph in a 65mph highway. Without it, it's easy to creep up to 70mph+. Remember the car has ZERO tactile speed feedback. Now imagine trying to modulate this speed for a 100 mile trip back home on the highway in snowy conditions. It **cking sucks.
PrGrPa
Member
Had radar failure warnings in my MB with driving snow. I’d thought it wasn’t build up on the sensor area but rather the impenetrability of the apparently oncoming snow.
FlyingCookie
Member
If I had AP, I don't think the radar would have been working through this... With that being said, a small heater behind the bumper to keep the snow off the radar on the new fascia should be pretty easy to do... Definitely something worth suggesting to Tesla.
I tested AP1 today in the snow on the way home from getting my snow tires mounted purely as a test to see if it would even engage and it did for a little while before it lost the lines.
I then used tacc set to 15mph under the posted limit and it worked great to keep a set distance between the car in front of me. After a few miles even tacc shut off and there was no way to engage even non tacc cruise.
Canuck
Well-Known Member
Exaggerate much?
Yikes, please don't tell people cruise control increases safety in snow or acts as some sort of fail safe. It does not. All the studies and experts say the opposite and we have large signs up here warning people to turn it off in winter conditions. I don't want someone sliding into me because they had cruise on thinking it increases safety when the opposite is true.
When using cruise control, the drive wheels have a tendency to overspin before the driver notices the loss of traction.
Turn off cruise control
Again, the reasons are fairly simple. You need to feel the road and power given to the tires (and you give that power -- not the vehicle) so you can instantly react in order to avoid sliding or hydroplaning if there's water on the ice. I've had to steer out of slides more than a few times and the results could have been much different if I was using cruise.
Likewise, winter driving carries with it a similar set of perils. Ice, snow, and sleet can make for dangerously slippery conditions, but so too can innocuous-looking slush and all-but-invisible “black ice.” Those who habitually rely upon their vehicles’ cruise controls should eschew the practice during the winter months, because the moments it takes to disengage cruise may be moments you don’t have during a spin-out.
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Not in this case.. A $3k used turbo Subaru (with no stability or traction control) will easily outpace my car in every conceivable way once the snow hits the road. Would you like me the numerate the many reasons why?
Oh, so the fancy Tesla-only traction control reaction that reacts in 1ms simply fails in the snow?
You said it, not me.
Oh please, I drive in the snow for FUN. This is not about "relying" on cruise control, it's about having driving tools available to you.
Defend poor design and implementation to the death, that is the Tesla cult motto.
Yeah, unfortunately there is no OFF setting. Not that you should need it, regen should be disabled in 1ms by traction control as necessary. Unfortunately by my guesstimate it's more like 800ms. Long enough for some radical yaw angle.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Well, while on AP1 the radar design may be better because radar heat melts some snow, the AP1 camera on the other hand is the very last part of the windshield which defrosts. I once heated my windshield and managed to melt off everything BUT the camera - it looks exactly opposite to the AP2 picture.
I even considered adding a heater there mysef, but given how rarely it freezes around Seattle I never got around to it.
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