I live in Canada. The snow is here and so is the salt and sand on the roads. The car gets filthy on every drive. There is no option to turn off auto wipers when my 2020 M3 is in cruise control or autopilot mode. The wipers kick on constantly streaking my windows. The only way to turn them off is to go off autopilot and/or cruise control. I have essentially not been able to use either autopilot or cruise control for three weeks now since the winter weather has arrived. This is because of a software update. This is my third winter with the car and I haven't had this problem before. I've called Tesla again today on this issue and was told that they are looking to make this a permanent feature. If that is the case, I will sell my car. It is making me hate the Tesla experience. What is the logic behind not allowing a driver to control his/her own wipers?!?!? I will never know.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Is it madness that wipers can't be controlled by the driver on cruise control or autopilot mode?
- Thread starter Canoe Daddy
- Start date
Same here. Service tried to tell me that's the workaround, but it's not.
Upvote
0
oldgoat1968
Member
I follow your logic but it makes me question it, too. First, since driving on AI requires good vision, the engineers made sure that both high beams and wipers are placed in auto mode. Great, but when I'm driving manually (the old fashioned way) I also need good vision. Why doesn't this logic force me to be in auto in that case? Secondly, what is the logic that says when I'm driving on a sunny day (no moisture or dead bugs or other foreign substance on my windshield) why do I have to have my wipers running continuously? Isn't that a potential safety hazard, too? Grit on the windshield could easily lead to permanent scratches in the glass and it could also affect the life of the wiper blades and the wiper motor in the extreme. Where's the logic of all that? I hate going on a long drive (500+ miles) on a fine sunny day and running my wipers the whole way.
Upvote
0
New Model Y owner here... This wiper problem is the craziest thing I have ever seen. Whenever I am using Cruise Control (which is frequently), the wipers are likely to start working despite no moisture being present. It has happened in the pre-dawn darkness and when the sun is shining. No rhyme or reason to it - and I am prevented
from turning them off. What is the solution? I would pull the fuse on the wipers - but there doesn't seem to be one.
This is a definite safety hazard, since I am giving my attention to shutting the wipers off rather than concentrating on driving.
Thanks, Dave
Upvote
0
One thing that has worked for me during my cases of the wacky wipers has been to hit the button on the left stalk one time quickly. It goes one more time and then stops. Caveat, I wasn't using autopilot either time, the wipers just went on. Worth a try, YMMV.
Upvote
0
oldgoat1968
Member
My experience exactly. My MY LR is only two weeks old and it's been doing this continuously since day 1. After three attempts by Tesla service to fix it, the problem persists.
Upvote
0
Some of the S/X still had physical rain sensors which are the correct solution to this problem, but Elon is maniacal about cost cutting and doesn't think deeply or listen to his engineers so there you go. Physical rain sensors work reliably so nobody complains if it goes on.
Sometimes if you clean the windscreen in front of the camera very well it can help with the problem, because it's trying to compensate by analyzing the front camera's images. It might help a little bit, but not reliably.
Since the focus of cameras (200m+) is not at the depth of the rain (0.5 cm), it can only try to detect rain by subtle features in the images like distortion or halos which may, or may not, be picked up my the machine learning classifier. Also the vision detection works better after it has seen moving images for a few seconds, so I've seen it freak out when first turned on then get better and slow down the wipe rate.
In Autopilot, you can hit the button on the left stalk and then manually turn the wipers to I (of IV), but not to off. That may make it less annoying.
PS: how physical rain sensors work: they emit an infrared light directly onto the glass and there is a close by photodetector. The normal dry case is set up to have total internal reflection from the outer edge of the glass but water drops on the windshield change this reflective behavior which can be picked up by the sensor. This works very reliably to detect stuff directly on the glass, and not be sensitive to anything else on the background.
How Does a Windshield Rain Sensor Work? | True Blue Auto Glass
There are many different techniques that automakers have experimented with to eliminate or substitute the wiper system. A rain sensor is a fairly recent addition to the windshield of a car. The technology has been around since the 50’s, however,…
www.trueblueautoglass.com
Last edited:
Upvote
0
Likelihood of legal liability to Tesla, of course. And training data with lots of rain on the sensor isn't included in the machine learning algorithm.
Upvote
0
That doesn’t apply to refresh S/X. The fake rain sensor and cameras are just as shitty as ours. But Tesla doesn’t force those cars to have auto wipers or auto high beams in autopilot.Some of the S/X still had physical rain sensors which are the correct solution to this problem, but Elon is maniacal about cost cutting and doesn't think deeply or listen to his engineers so there you go. Physical rain sensors work reliably so nobody complains if it goes on.
Sometimes if you clean the windscreen in front of the camera very well it can help with the problem, because it's trying to compensate by analyzing the front camera's images. It might help a little bit, but not reliably.
Since the focus of cameras (200m+) is not at the depth of the rain (0.5 cm), it can only try to detect rain by subtle features in the images like distortion or halos which may, or may not, be picked up my the machine learning classifier. Also the vision detection works better after it has seen moving images for a few seconds, so I've seen it freak out when first turned on then get better and slow down the wipe rate.
In Autopilot, you can hit the button on the left stalk and then manually turn the wipers to I (of IV), but not to off. That may make it less annoying.
PS: how physical rain sensors work: they emit an infrared light directly onto the glass and there is a close by photodetector. The normal dry case is set up to have total internal reflection from the outer edge of the glass but water drops on the windshield change this reflective behavior which can be picked up by the sensor. This works very reliably to detect stuff directly on the glass, and not be sensitive to anything else on the background.
How Does a Windshield Rain Sensor Work? | True Blue Auto Glass
There are many different techniques that automakers have experimented with to eliminate or substitute the wiper system. A rain sensor is a fairly recent addition to the windshield of a car. The technology has been around since the 50’s, however,…
Upvote
0
No, they went vision only in the middle before HW4 rolled out (and I’m not sure the radar is actually active on HW4 yet)
My dad has a vision only HW3 refresh X. Does not make you use auto high beams or auto wipers in autopilot or cruise. But the other vision limitations are present (max speed 85, min following distance of 2)
Upvote
0
Just to clarify: the wiper problem occurs when I use Cruise Control (which is just about every time I drive it). Don't
have Autopilot on my car - and probably wouldn't use it if I did. The only thing I have done so far is to clean the
windshield in front of the cameras. That does seem to help - the problem has not recurred the last couple of days.
have Autopilot on my car - and probably wouldn't use it if I did. The only thing I have done so far is to clean the
windshield in front of the cameras. That does seem to help - the problem has not recurred the last couple of days.
Upvote
0
You do have autopilot. The Cruise control and basic lane following is "Autopilot". What you dont have is the lane changing, auto park which is enhanced auto pilot,, and further the full self driving package, which is supposed to allow you to navigate city streets eventually.
Upvote
0
I actually think the answer to that may be more sinister or silly: it's because Elon drives a Plaid S and he bitched about it and told the team to fix it (but it is fundamentally unfixable, and they didn't want to get fired in a rage). Way too much of Tesla is driven by Elon's immediate personal experience with the car---like AP got good at heavy LA freeway traffic when he lived in LA (commuted to SpaceX), possibly at expense of other stuff which wasn't mature, like phantom braking on wide open freeways. (which never happens in LA)
Upvote
0
Update:
Terminology issue. Anyway, I haven't tried the "Autopilot" yet. Have mostly been driving to work and back plus a few trips to nearby cities. Will save that for a road trip.
Anyway, I have an update on the Wiper problem. Hadn't noticed it for a few days - but it was back today. There was condensation on the windshield when I departed for work - so I did a couple of manual wipes before starting out to clear it away. I did not clean the area in front of the windshield camera. Otherwise the weather was dry, and time of day just before dawn. So as soon as I got on the freeway and engaged Cruise Control the wipers started. Pressing the button on the left (turn signal) stalk made no difference. Did not use the washer.
So I turned CC off and then turned the wipers off. Drove over the hill without using either (my commute involves going over a mountain pass). Arriving at the valley floor I found the weather to be low clouds and fog - with some accumulation of moisture on the windshield. I turned on Auto Wipers (only - no CC) and continued the five miles more to my office. There was no response from the wipers for the entire distance.
So these stupid Auto Wipers work when they should not - and fail to work when they should! How can I disable the Auto
Function? I would be perfectly happy to control them manually - and forget the "Auto" nonsense!
Dave
Upvote
0
Similar threads
