How will Enhanced AP deal with snow & salt?

[Bangor Bob]

"Won't scratch" is a tricky part - there are usually fine (and sometimes not-so-fine) particles of sand in the mix too. Even windshields get a scratch pattern etched in them after a couple seasons from the wipers dragging the sand back and forth.

Synthetic sapphire, maybe?

 

[CHG-ON]

Anyone take a look at their halogen headlamps after driving in dirty rain or snow? That's what heating will do when you are dealing with dirty spray - it'll just bake it on. There's a long way to go to solve these problems I believe.

I bet the new LEDs might help with the baking, at least. Not sure on snow. Maybe back to the mini wipers, which I always have found to be funny. And the thing about salt is that it corrosive, so it is literally digging into the plastic. Not good for longevity and those lights aren't cheap. I wonder how many times we could buff them out before they are too thin.

 

[DrWumbo]

Very nice. Even the rear? I would love that.

I'm not sure about the rear, but AP 2 is currently not slated to use the rear camera.

 

[ev-now]

I bet the new LEDs might help with the baking, at least

I was referencing the effect of heating - as heaters are apparently present on the AP2 sensors - that was the thread discussion, not the actual headlights.

You are right regarding lights, the LEDs do not have the baking problem (or the ice melting advantage either mind you).

 

[ev-now]

I think the most important bit is for the system to recognize when it can't function optimally and notify the driver. Seems to be doing this quite well today.

Certainly seems to air on the conservative side and shutdown quite effectively - fail-safe is obviously best. In the context of drier assistance this is just fine, but with the idea these vehicles might someday be enabled to for full autonomous ... more worrying. I think when you say fully autonomous there are different ways to interpret that - and those definitions will be stretched and constrained as the market shakes out what is possible.

You might have full autonomous driving in defined circumstances (conditions or locations) only for example, meaning it is FSD in 80% of driving situations and you are 100% manual in the remaining 20%. Or the ratio might be far less skewed to FSD - we'll see over the next .... sometime (longer than a year I am sure).

 

[ElectricTundra]

Yes. The minor problem is that people will expect their new EAP cars to function in more than defined circumstances. The bigger problem is how do we get by these problems in the future?

 

[davidc18]

My guess is that like AP 1.0. AP 2.0 will be a fair weather only. Perhaps AP 3 will be able to handle more common 'bad' weather.

 

[ccharleb]

Some pictures and discutions also there about front radar:
Pictures of radar unit obstructed: please post yours

 

[bswn1]

I'm not sure about the rear, but AP 2 is currently not slated to use the rear camera.

I believe it does actually.

 

[DrWumbo]

I believe it does actually.

I think you are right. AP 2 uses 8 cameras. The newest added are the 3 in the front, 2 for the turning signal indicators, and 2 for the pillars, which is 7 in total. The only other is the rear facing. Not sure why I thought that it doesn't

 

[Zeromus-X]

My guess is that like AP 1.0. AP 2.0 will be a fair weather only. Perhaps AP 3 will be able to handle more common 'bad' weather.

The problem here is that many people are envisioning their AP2 cars to be able to drop them off at dinner, go find a charger, charge up, and come pick them up when summoned. If the weather changes while I'm eating and the car can't reliably come get me, I'm stuck and the system is useless now (or I at least have lost a lot of confidence in the ability to use it).

 

[ElectricTundra]

I did a bit of an experiment the past couple of days. I stuck some 1" squares of white gaff tape on my P85D where the AP2 sensors are. A lot depends on how much obstruction will cause how much of a problem. The worst is my rear camera that can become effectively unusable in about 10 minutes of driving. The ones in the turn signal / badge were next worse. The worst salt spray here was from the front tire so if these may not do too badly if they are recessed enough to prevent this. The ones on the upper pillar between the front and back doors got fairly gummed up yesterday morning (36f after several days of snow and salt application) but since then have remained clean.

Assuming the 3 in front are cleared by the wiper and the heaters work well in all of them then they may work most of the time. Of course, that still leaves the problem of the radar and prox sensors.