Autowipers. What happened to the K.I.S.S. principle?

[Schnure]

I have owned my Model 3 for three weeks. Last night I left the office Christmas Party sooner than I expected, so I had not prewarmed the car. This is a Massachusetts, so there was a thin layer of ice on the edges of the windshield. The automatic sensor thought there was a downpour so the wipers worked furiously for about 10 min until the ice finally melted. I put the wipers on slow, but it would have been nice to stop them completely

 

[TheLocNar]

Elon talks about using the neural net to improve them. Um. The auto wipers on the 2010 Infiniti M35 still in my garage work just fine without one. I agree. Just keep things like wipers simple.

 

[Darren F]

I have owned my Model 3 for three weeks. Last night I left the office Christmas Party sooner than I expected, so I had not prewarmed the car. This is a Massachusetts, so there was a thin layer of ice on the edges of the windshield. The automatic sensor thought there was a downpour so the wipers worked furiously for about 10 min until the ice finally melted. I put the wipers on slow, but it would have been nice to stop them completely

I am assuming since you didn't turn them off completely, you must not know that is an option. While on the wiper control screen, just press the wiper icon above all the different speed settings. That turns them off.

 

[Iowa2]

Yea, there ain't any such thing as a simple sensor that can correct drive the wipers. Even the ones in use on other vehicles probably require a lot of code to make them work.

Look at Tesla from the longer viewpoint. The goal is not to make the wipers work for you, the goal is to make the wipers work for the Autopilot. And what's the best way to do that? Exactly like you do today, look out the window and see if your visibility is hampered. That's a lot easier said than done. And before you return with its obvious for a human, that's very afar from the truth, as I go a lot longer without wipers than my wife does. In fact, for me, some rain situations, for me, are better with the wipers off, than on.

And from a slightly different viewpoint, it is imperative that an Autopilot know when it's vision is reliable or not. So no matter what you want, that algorithm has to be created, just to know if safe automatic driving is possible.

I am a little confused as to why you would think that the autopilot even needs wipers as it never "looks" out the windows only the passengers do. Now if there are wipers on the sensors maybe I would think differently.

 

[electracity]

Makes you wonder if they even tested the car at different speeds in different conditions?

If Elon lived in Toronto the car would not have the various freezing issues. They obviously only did enough cold weather testing to claim that they did cold weather testing. Must save enough engineering time to respond to Elon's impulse of the week.

 

[Uncle Paul]

If you subscribe to the KISS principals you would just operate the wipers manually

 

[Knightshade]

I am a little confused as to why you would think that the autopilot even needs wipers as it never "looks" out the windows only the passengers do.

Uh, you might wanna double check where all 3 front cameras are located....

 

[Insight75]

The auto wipers just plain suck. I could hardly ever use them to be honest. Very disappointing.

 

[trm2]

If you subscribe to the KISS principals you would just operate the wipers manually

So would that be Keep It Stupid, Simple?

 

[Lunares]

auto wipers worked fine for me this weekend with the LA/San Diego rain...increased in intensity when i needed more and turned off when the rain stopped. Don't really get the complaints but I guess it's not working for others.

 

[OPRCE]

As I understand it the wide-angle forward camera is (as an afterthought believed by himself only to be a brainwave) used to detect rain on the windscreen about 40mm away, but in order to be useful for AP, its designed function, its focal length and depth of field are well outside that range, probably starting somewhere around the end of the hood 1500mm further. This I believe is the fundamental problem, that the camera is essentially looking for the raindrops through a jar of clam juice, which explains why much guesswork and inevitable failure is involved.

Naturally it is a huge and idiotic waste of engineering resources, not to mention customers' nerves, to persist for years in trying to make this inherently flawed design work by inundating it with the magic pixie-dust of AI whereas a perfectly capable industry-standard IR sensor costing $1 had already solved the problem before it was needlessly reinvented for ego-trip reasons.

Sadly a class-action lawsuit is probably the only way to get this info through his ivory dome.

 

[jsmay311]

A: Hubris.

(Also, poor corporate management and sh**ty product development practices that lead to rushing unfinished and unvalidated products/features to market.)

 

[cusman]

I've left my wipers on Auto since I got the car and it has rained plenty and they are working great. The only issue I had is a few software updates ago, they would turn on while the car was parked in the garage (not raining). They are pretty much working perfectly now. Speed up and slow down according to amount of rain or mist from other cars is hitting the windshield impeding vision.

 

[timk225]

I don't want auto wipe, because it won't do it right. It'll wipe more or less often than I'd prefer. Just let us handle turning the wipers on and off by ourselves, Tesla. We can do it!

 

[Xevex]

Not a fan of autowipe either.

I was in a public parking lot with foggy rain lightly covered my M3's windshield, not even a drizzle.

As soon as I start the car, it goes MAX SPEED mode for like 10 seconds and goes to slowest setting. People were watching at me like 'wth is he doing?' I was a little bit embarassed by then.

Had a few more similar events after, and now I'm just using the wiper manually. Hopefully it gets improved in near future.

 

[fseir]

auto wipers worked fine for me this weekend with the LA/San Diego rain...increased in intensity when i needed more and turned off when the rain stopped. Don't really get the complaints but I guess it's not working for others.

I think you have to experience them somewhere where rain is frequent, and changes intensity rapidly. Here in Hawaii, it can go from a drizzle, to a downpour, back to a drizzle in seconds, and the wipers are generally good at turning on and going faster, but they seem to have a much harder time slowing back down. So it can be barely drizzling and they’re still going berserk, like you’re in a downpour. It’s kind of embarrassing!

I’ve ceramic coated my glass, to minimize wiper use, and just use the stalk button when needed.

 

[Candleflame]

Falcon wing doors should have killed any notion you had that Tesla adheres to KISS.

Well a lot of people assumed that Tesla developed this to give the Model 3 just 2 falcon wing doors to save money on putting 4 doors in. Would have made the Model 3 a timeless classic but well.... didnt happen haha.