bjorn nyland's test of tesla vision

[Artiste]

Given you can dip the headlights using the left stalk, do you think maybe some of your other assertions may be questionable?

So we are supposed to manually operate the auto features of the car? Seems like an oxymoron to me.

Perhaps this is the secret to FSD that no one has realised. FSD will work flawlessly, and phantom braking will be a thing of the past, as long as the driver always manually operates the accelerator, brake and steering wheel

 

[GRiLLA]

Surely the point is that you shouldn’t have to dip the headlights because they are supposed to be auto headlights. For years I’ve enjoyed auto wipers and superb matrix headlights (courtesy of Audi, probably the market leader in headlight technology) that I can just forget about because they work flawlessly. I buy an M3 and the wipers set me back 20 years and the headlights set me back 10 years. I never thought I’d see wipers thrashing about on a dry screen on a sunny day then refuse to wipe properly in a downpour, or have irate drivers flashing me because my auto headlights are blinding them.

They are, as roadcred said, crap!

In my previous car, a 2012 BMW X1 the auto wipers wouldn't start wiping unless I pressed a the button, they were only auto in terms of speed, the speed also needed constant finessing using a sensitivity wheel. The headlights didn't have auto-dipping, that was manual, and they were not LED.

Not all cars were higher specced Audi's

 

[browellm]

Given you can dip the headlights using the left stalk, do you think maybe some of your other assertions may be questionable?

Mr. ad, meet Mr. hominem.

 

[browellm]

In my previous car, a 2012 BMW X1 the auto wipers wouldn't start wiping unless I pressed a the button

The activation of BMW auto-wipers has always been button activated, and better for it. It's to stop your wipers coming on in car washes etc. Excellent ergonomics.

they were only auto in terms of speed, the speed also needed constant finessing using a sensitivity wheel.

Then they weren't auto. That's just fixed speed adjustment.
My 2013 wipers WERE auto and the wheel adjusted the sensitivity of the sensor to rain. They were flawless and with 4 adjustable levels of sensitivity they catered for a broad spectrum of user preferences.

 

[Durzel]

Surely the point is that you shouldn’t have to dip the headlights because they are supposed to be auto headlights. For years I’ve enjoyed auto wipers and superb matrix headlights (courtesy of Audi, probably the market leader in headlight technology) that I can just forget about because they work flawlessly. I buy an M3 and the wipers set me back 20 years and the headlights set me back 10 years. I never thought I’d see wipers thrashing about on a dry screen on a sunny day then refuse to wipe properly in a downpour, or have irate drivers flashing me because my auto headlights are blinding them.

They are, as roadcred said, crap!

+1

If you have to have your hand hovering over the stalk to correct it, the technology has failed.

I even think 10 years is being generous on the headlights. I had a 2013 Audi that had auto headlights and the only complaint I would have had about them is that they didn't see the gradual increase in illumination from an approaching car that is around a corner, but they still turned off quickly enough after seeing a headlight to not result in me being flashed, so it was no big deal.

You could probably knock another 5 years off that 10 years and still find cars with working systems (particularly the equivalent German marques).

The few times I've used auto headlights in my M3 it has fully blinded people for longer than I'm comfortable with. Even 2-3 full seconds of obvious lethargy is too much for me to feel comfortable with.

They haven't turned off when I've gone through villages with street lighting either, which is just bizarre to me. No perception of ambient lighting at all.

 

[Battpower]

Every time there is a thread like this one, the words that go through my mind are 'whose car is this?'

That's the whole problem with OTA that is pretty much down to Tesla to do as they please with.

I'm surprised we've never had a discussion before on auto headlights, autopilot performance, wipers, over the air updates,

I think the topics have been pretty well covered except latest Vision issues. But for me (2019 MS R radar) I've never found auto lights useable, certainly not on country lanes / poor lighting where it's always been anyone's guess when head beam switches. Ok, may be not completely random, but totally useless. Eg car in front's tail lights rarely responded to and often any reflective signs ahead of a bend or hazard especially on dark lanes causes head beam to dip just when you need to see exactly what's ahead. Contrast with my Kona which is extremely useable and gets it right 99% of the time.

had no big issue with either the auto-fulbeam or auto-wipers, both I would say worked adequately for me

I don't doubt your experience, but with so many reporting such patchy and variable experience over the months (myself included) I don't see how this is can be all a fabrication.

wiping due to dirt on a perfectly dry day, my only choice is to stop autopilot then turn them off. There is no longer an allowed human override.

As I read this I thought 'of course, if this is a critical function (VO features) then you need vision to be able to see... guaranteed....'

Then you said:

If Vision AutoPilot relies of perfect behavior of auto-full beam and auto-wipers then it's not a viable service, they aren't going to be perfect, Tesla need to put back the radar.

Yes. Which comes back to whose car is this? .... and are OTA updates a good thing or do they allow Tesla to duck and dive far too much? Makes it look like stuff is always being fixed or just about to be fixed when in fact it's more the exact opposite.

 

[yessuz]

In my previous car, a 2012 BMW X1 the auto wipers wouldn't start wiping unless I pressed a the button, they were only auto in terms of speed, the speed also needed constant finessing using a sensitivity wheel. The headlights didn't have auto-dipping, that was manual, and they were not LED.

Not all cars were higher specced Audi's

so in your previous, 10 year old x1, it was not auto wipers.
and your lights were not auto long beam.

my 2015 Ford Mondeo had auto wipers (heck, my 2003 Saab 9-5 had auto wipers) which worked from sensor (very reliably)
it also had auto long beam which worked like a charm.

 

[Durzel]

Every time there is a thread like this one, the words that go through my mind are 'whose car is this?'

....

Yes. Which comes back to whose car is this? .... and are OTA updates a good thing or do they allow Tesla to duck and dive far too much? Makes it look like stuff is always being fixed or just about to be fixed when in fact it's more the exact opposite.

My primary frustration, along those lines, is the auto wipers and auto headlights are a fully solved problem.

The solutions are not particularly technical, either. Neither requires AI or "deep learning" or calibration.

The problem - as you touched on - is that Tesla basically decided not to do what every other manufacturer did, and go their own way, and it's the customers who suffer and have no choice. They could've just deployed a $5 (or less, at scale) Bosch rain sensor and a front facing camera to "see" distant rear lights, etc.

In the former case Tesla in its infinite wisdom decided to use AI and cameras to try and work out when its raining. They failed. The system as it exists does not even rise to reach parity with the aforementioned $5 rain sensor, even before you consider how much has been spent in development man-hours on it, or the wasted CPU cycles consumed doing it.

In the latter case the car has front facing cameras, so it really ought not to be difficult to solve the auto headlights problem. The car evidently has ambient light sensors too, since it will turn the dipped beam on when needed. For whatever reason though Tesla don't seem at all interested in solving this problem. I am not convinced there has been any improvement in it since I got the car, or that any improvement should be expected any time soon.

AP1 cars had rain sensors, and I'm reliably informed that their auto wipers work as you'd expect - i.e. properly. Somehow, cars built years later are orders of magnitude worse. It is long past the time Tesla accepted that the "cameras & AI detects rain" gambit has failed.

 

[Dilly]

Auto main beam is pretty unusable for sure. I’ve not had any real complaint about the wipers. They are not better or worse than Japanese cars I’ve owned. I’ve not experienced dry wiping or slow speed in a downpour. But that’s one car out of many. Different time/place of manufacture. Different hardware. Different location. Who knows?
There are a lot of great things about my 30 month old car that I like. Newer ones are improved in some areas, not so in others. There are now things I have that new models don’t have. The simple things that weren’t quite working properly or missing that software update could have dealt with, have not been remedied or implemented and having bought FSD, there is no incentive for me to buy another Tesla.

 

[Zilla91]

I’ve found the wipers Ok in that they start wiping when it rains but I do find the intensity it goes for is a bit off.

The main issue I’ve had with them which made me switch auto off is when they start dry wiping because of bright sunlight.

 

[Kenners]

People keep buying FSD, encouraging Elon to focus on that pipedream at the expense of every other bit of software. Being lofted a new game seems to be it for everyone else these days. So if you want to blame anyone, blame the fanbois who pay up for that vapourware. They should remember that even in Star Wars FSD didn't work.

And the car needs a proper rain sensor and Elon needs to pay up to license proper headlight software. Vision only is a bodge and will never work properly.

 

[GRiLLA]

My primary frustration, along those lines, is the auto wipers and auto headlights are a fully solved problem.

It's not though, or at least not as a system for self driving. On other cars with auto-wipers there is always a sensitivity control, and the driver is expected to fiddle with this until they are happy with how the wipers react. Some of this might be personal preference, but it's also calibration of the rain sensor and other environmental factors that make it behave differently at different times of the year.

Tesla's mission is to build a self driving car, so they would need to either build something that auto calibrated the rain sensor, or as they have build something that doesn't need calibration. As I'm sure everyone has realised they are not interested in building things that rely on a driver.

I don't see how this is can be all a fabrication.

I haven't called it a fabrication anywhere. I was satisfied with both systems when I could override them myself, and they are a step up from what I've had previously. I am less satisfied with AutoPilot now it doesn't allow me to override and correct edge cases where they don't work as well as necessary.

 

[Durzel]

It's not though, or at least not as a system for self driving. On other cars with auto-wipers there is always a sensitivity control, and the driver is expected to fiddle with this until they are happy with how the wipers react. Some of this might be personal preference, but it's also calibration of the rain sensor and other environmental factors that make it behave differently at different times of the year.

Tesla's mission is to build a self driving car, so they would need to either build something that auto calibrated the rain sensor, or as they have build something that doesn't need calibration. As I'm sure everyone has realised they are not interested in building things that rely on a driver.


I haven't called it a fabrication anywhere. I was satisfied with both systems when I could override them myself, and they are a step up from what I've had previously. I am less satisfied with AutoPilot now it doesn't allow me to override and correct edge cases where they don't work as well as necessary.

What has dealing with rain got to do with self-driving, beyond ensuring the cameras can see the road clearly?

The sensitivity control you speak of is nothing to do with the automatic wipers, in my experience. It is a control for regulating how fast the wipers operate in an manual fixed interval mode. Some usually cheaper cars e.g. only have slow, regular and rapid settings but cars with sensitivity controls can have a graduated setting, but it's still manual. Cars with rain sensors in automatic mode take full control of how fast the wipers go, and whether they're on at all.

Rain sensors as they exist currently, the ones from Bosch etc, are self-calibrating units that can be configured to control (automatic) the wipers completely. The whole point of them, and their efficacy across multiple brands, is that the manufacturers don't have to worry about computing this data themselves, exactly what Tesla tries to do with their camera based system.

I would be willing to bet that other cars that have equivalent or better ADAS and ALKS to Tesla are just using regular rain sensors, and don't have to have some funky "self-driving aware" new tech, because the existing tech just works and has for years.

 

[GRiLLA]

The sensitivity control you speak of is nothing to do with the automatic wipers, in my experience.

Let me refer you to the manual of the new BMW i4, a brand new car with all the latest technology

This is a sensitivity control for the rain sensor, it is needed to make the auto-wipers find the correct speed and it needs a human to operate it. It's not fully-automatic.

 

[GRiLLA]

I would be willing to bet that other cars that have equivalent or better ADAS and ALKS to Tesla are just using regular rain sensors, and don't have to have some funky "self-driving aware" new tech, because the existing tech just works and has for years.

Well yeah, they are using Radars and not just vision, that was the point of this thread.

 

[yessuz]

I’ve found the wipers Ok in that they start wiping when it rains but I do find the intensity it goes for is a bit off.

The main issue I’ve had with them which made me switch auto off is when they start dry wiping because of bright sunlight.

issue is - it starts when it's raining, (in most cases) but as you mentioned, I can get very mild drizzle an wipers act like it's tropical rain

 

[yessuz]

It's not though, or at least not as a system for self driving. On other cars with auto-wipers there is always a sensitivity control, and the driver is expected to fiddle with this until they are happy with how the wipers react. Some of this might be personal preference, but it's also calibration of the rain sensor and other environmental factors that make it behave differently at different times of the year.

Tesla's mission is to build a self driving car, so they would need to either build something that auto calibrated the rain sensor, or as they have build something that doesn't need calibration. As I'm sure everyone has realised they are not interested in building things that rely on a driver.


I haven't called it a fabrication anywhere. I was satisfied with both systems when I could override them myself, and they are a step up from what I've had previously. I am less satisfied with AutoPilot now it doesn't allow me to override and correct edge cases where they don't work as well as necessary.

the point being is that rain sensor is more or less simple sensor with LED which just works, rather than vision bases nonsense which doesn't.

and yes, cars with radars just.. well, work better...

so what's the point of re-inventing wheel when others have BETTER working systems already?

 

[Battpower]

I haven't called it a fabrication

Sorry if it came over as though I was aiming at you specifically. I was thinking more about the general polarisation of opinion that happens with many topics on TMC.

 

[GRiLLA]

the point being is that rain sensor is more or less simple sensor with LED which just works, rather than vision bases nonsense which doesn't.

and yes, cars with radars just.. well, work better...

so what's the point of re-inventing wheel when others have BETTER working systems already?

It 'just works' with human input, which to me is why Tesla chose not to go that way as they are single minded about self driving. All I'm doing is answering the much repeated question about why they didn't include a $5 rain sensor. It wouldn't allow them to reach a self-driving car, seems logical to me.

They have attempted a solution that remove the requirement for a human to operate the sensitivity control that's required with these rain sensors on even the most advanced alternative cars. I doubt even the most vocal pro-Tesla user (might be me) would argue that it is 100% perfect, some may find it adequate, some not.

By making it mandatory with Tesla Vision it has to be perfect.

 

[Zilla91]

It 'just works' with human input, which to me is why Tesla chose not to go that way as they are single minded about self driving.

So they don’t want human input? What about selecting whether I want to go forwards or backwards, entering a destination on the sat nav or adjusting my seat and wing mirrors? Why isn’t my rear view mirror automated so that I don’t have to fiddle with it after every time my wife drives the car?