Feature Ask: I want variable wiper frequency

[Petra]

Even in CA they're not terribly worthwhile. I've resorted to manually controlling the wipers. It's a pain, but nothing else works.

You're not alone there... I've resorted to the same. These rain sensing wipers are pretty annoying and mostly because they're too fast at every setting. It's not like it's impossible to implement rain sensing wipers that work decently, considering that the ones in my '07 E90 BMW were alright (though, I recall them having more adjustability).

 

[mnewman]

I'd trade any kind of automatic sensing based speed for the old fashioned, manually set intermittent speed. I find the changes in speed more distracting than helpful...

YES! THIS! Over and over again.

 

[green1]

I saw an interesting feature a long time ago on a car, and I don't remember make or model, but it was amazing. Tap a button twice, the interval between the taps becomes the frequency of the wipers. Allowed custom and arbitrary wiper speeds without the usual solution of 3,000 detents on the wiper control before you get to full wipers. It could easily be done by software too. Leave one of the 2 - - - positions on the stalk as the current automatic (which, btw, I find works pretty much flawlessly for me on my car) and the other could be linked to a tap speed setting using the button on the end of the stalk. It's not like the 2 settings are currently particularly different from each other right now.

 

[ohmman]

I saw an interesting feature a long time ago on a car, and I don't remember make or model, but it was amazing. Tap a button twice, the interval between the taps becomes the frequency of the wipers. Allowed custom and arbitrary wiper speeds without the usual solution of 3,000 detents on the wiper control before you get to full wipers. It could easily be done by software too. Leave one of the 2 - - - positions on the stalk as the current automatic (which, btw, I find works pretty much flawlessly for me on my car) and the other could be linked to a tap speed setting using the button on the end of the stalk. It's not like the 2 settings are currently particularly different from each other right now.

That's very cool, intuitive, and sensible. Your taps are going to be timed to match the intensity of the rain, so it should be close to perfect. An option to make your personal interval slightly adaptive with respect to speed would also be cool.

 

[NovemberXray]

I saw an interesting feature a long time ago on a car, and I don't remember make or model, but it was amazing. Tap a button twice, the interval between the taps becomes the frequency of the wipers. Allowed custom and arbitrary wiper speeds without the usual solution of 3,000 detents on the wiper control before you get to full wipers. It could easily be done by software too. Leave one of the 2 - - - positions on the stalk as the current automatic (which, btw, I find works pretty much flawlessly for me on my car) and the other could be linked to a tap speed setting using the button on the end of the stalk. It's not like the 2 settings are currently particularly different from each other right now.

That would provide a clever way for Tesla to implement this with just software changes.

I find that my Audi's rain sensing wiper system seemed to work much better. It did have 4 different levels of sensitivity, but I rarely needed to change it, because it was very reliable about actually seeing the rain and wiping consistently. I find with my Model X that it's just not consistent. If it actually detects the rain, then the two different speeds (which should really just be about how much water you like to let build up before you want to wipe it) I believe are adequate. The problem is that it often just doesn't seem to see the water and so I have to tap the manual wipe button every now and then. Maybe they can use the advanced radar to bounce the signal around rain drops?

On a side note, anyone else bewildered by the fact that there appears to be two totally different systems determining when to turn on the headlights and when to switch the display to night mode? Every other car I've had with auto lights, the two are (very logically it seems to me) connected! So when it's dark enough to turn on the lights, you get dark mode on the screen(s), and when the lights go off, the screen shows day mode. I wish that had a sensitivity setting as well, because I often want the lights to turn on sooner than they do in auto mode. Lastly, I wish the lights would turn OFF when in park mode after a certain time out. If I park, and haven't got out of the car yet, the headlights just stay on indefinitely, even if I am waiting for someone for 20 minutes! Waste of battery, and potentially impolite as well so you have to manually turn them off.

 

[green1]

On a side note, anyone else bewildered by the fact that there appears to be two totally different systems determining when to turn on the headlights and when to switch the display to night mode? Every other car I've had with auto lights, the two are (very logically it seems to me) connected! So when it's dark enough to turn on the lights, you get dark mode on the screen(s), and when the lights go off, the screen shows day mode. I wish that had a sensitivity setting as well, because I often want the lights to turn on sooner than they do in auto mode. Lastly, I wish the lights would turn OFF when in park mode after a certain time out. If I park, and haven't got out of the car yet, the headlights just stay on indefinitely, even if I am waiting for someone for 20 minutes! Waste of battery, and potentially impolite as well so you have to manually turn them off.

This is one of the things that Tesla has done better than any other car I've ever seen. Most cars link the 2, so that you're squinting at night mode on your dash when it's still much lighter than that at dusk or in the rain and want your headlights for safety, or conversely, your dash is perfect, and you're dangerously driving without headlights at dusk or dawn when they're needed the most. Tesla's method of separating the two is so much better, and MUCH safer.

As for leaving the headlights on in park, that one you're right about. and even worse in Canada where the "off" position of the lights mysteriously turns them ON instead of off! though I will say that "waste of battery" is laughable as this isn't your old ICE with the tiny 12v, the range hit from the headlights on a Tesla is so small as to not really even be measurable.

 

[NovemberXray]

This is one of the things that Tesla has done better than any other car I've ever seen. Most cars link the 2, so that you're squinting at night mode on your dash when it's still much lighter than that at dusk or in the rain and want your headlights for safety, or conversely, your dash is perfect, and you're dangerously driving without headlights at dusk or dawn when they're needed the most. Tesla's method of separating the two is so much better, and MUCH safer.

Hmm, I can appreciate your reasoning for having them be separate, however for me it just doesn't work very well then. I regularly get in the car at night and am blinded by the display as it tries to figure out whether to be in day or night mode, or going through a tunnel, or late dusk and the display is still in day mode and too bright for my taste. And in general I would prefer the headlights to come on earlier, they don't come on for me until it's well into twilight.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I have hated automatic wipers in every car that I have owned that had them. Quite apart from the annoying distraction of the frequent wipe-interval changes, they engage Double Speed far far earlier than I ever would.

Seems daft to me that such vehicles don't offer "old fashioned manual mode, if you prefer Sir", its just a bit of electronics. Or, in Tesla's case, just LOG how often the driver overrides the automatic mode and set the software DEV's bonus based on how much that decreases after the next release

One major frustration I have is when I need double-speed (e..g a passing truck has huge sideways spray off the wheels). In the old days I would know from the frequency of the wiping whether they were in Intermittent or Slow, and thus it was either One or Two stalk clicks to get to Double. Now wipers running at single-speed can actually be in anything from low-intermittent to single-continuous. Or if they are on double speed and I want single, I instinctively turn them down one click, and that, of course, turns out to be off!!

My work around is that I'm going to try Rain-X - or whatever the modern equivalent best-of-breed is.

On a side note

I too have a problem with the Auto Lights. The blue Full Beam indicator is obscured by my position of the steering wheel. Thus they come on, without me noticing, at Full Beam. Its only dusk, so to start with oncoming traffic is probably not bothered but then, at some point when it gets a bit darker, I only become aware of it when someone flashes me. Surely they should come on Dipped? (the Forward / Backward position of the stalk would obviously be wrong, and take two movements to put back to Full Beam, something that has been solved in other cars I have driven by the Full Beam / Dip being a momentary switch)

 

[P85DBeast]

I really dont think manufactures test out Rain-Sensing Wipers good enough before they are put into production. My wife's 2009 Lexus ES 350 that we bought brand new had rain-sensing wipers and they were HORRIBLE they would hardly ever activate when it starts to rain (Sensitivity was at highest setting) so you would have to De-activate them then re-activate them again before they started to work properly! so we just used the manually intermittent levels. We ended up selling this car to get her Tahoe and we sold the Tahoe to get the her 85D Model's and She complains about the rain-sensing feature and how It does suit her needs, and I totally agree with her! I think this should be a option for Free! If you want it get if you dont want it dont get it. If that was the case none of our Tesla's Would have rain-sensing wipers!