Neural Net Rain Drop Sensor??

[Knightshade]

It's easy to tell when the auto high beams are failing. I dont have to make a subjective judgement -- drivers in the opposite direction do it for me!!!

Im baffled at how they can't get it right, because the boolean state of the high beams is easy to implement, given the car has capable sensor suite that knows if there are vehicles ahead or not.

On cars with true beam-forming technology, which should be harder to implement, you could literally see the lights actively carving the illumination around other cars. Really impressive tech that I wish was available on Tesla

This is a great example.

Because for me, the high beams DO detect drivers ahead and turn themselves off just fine.

The only time I ever see them get anything "wrong" is when there's something very reflective ahead/on the side that makes them turn them off without cause because the reflected light is somehow seen as oncoming headlights (and it's not common, just has happened often enough for me to notice it happening... as opposed to failing to turn OFF when they SHOULD, which I can't recall them ever doing)


But I expect I'm driving entirely different roads/traffic situations than you.

 

[Uncle Paul]

It is the Tesla way to develop their own systems and avoid paying patent fees to use others technology.

So far, Tesla has produced 1 Million vehicles. If they just saved $10/vehicle that is $10 Million saved. Will pay for a lot of software tweaking.

Originally my X did not come with automatic windshield wipers. Later they downloaded a software package that magically made them automated. It did not work very well and many complained. Over the years they have tweaked them several times and they have gotten better with each tweak. Now they are working better than ever, but still not exactly as I would like. They are good enough now that i don't give them much mind.

Tesla did the same thing with headlights. My X came with standard headlights. Some time later they downloaded a automatic mode. Again people complained that they were not good enough. Over time they tweaked those as well and now work much better. Imagine both wipers and headlights will continue to improve until they become even better than the competitive systems.

Tesla will patent these systems, and if they wish in the future to begin charging others to use their advanced systems they could.

 

[jjrandorin]

Wow, a thread about teslas windshield wipers! This is new, I bet this is the first time someone has posted about this!

 

[Uncle Paul]

New people come on this board all the time.

 

[jjrandorin]

New people come on this board all the time.

Sure, yeah I get that.....

But if you search TMC for "windshield wipers" you get 10+ pages of hits (I just tried this).

Couple this with the fact that this OP is talking about "neural net windshield wipers?!", which means that the OP has done enough research to find out that windshield wipers in Teslas are driven by a Neural Net, unlike other cars.... so the OP had to do some research either here or somewhere else to find that.

So, we can deduce that this is a calculated decision to complain about windshield wipers in another thread, based on the above.

TL ; DR version -- Posting about issues with "neural net winshield wipers" means that, post count or not, the OP has some knowledge about the topic and just wants to complain about tesla's decisions on this topic.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Thank you Mr. Spock

 

[SSonnentag]

Elon makes a good argument that a human had 2 eyes, so what they can do a camera can do, but their software is not there yet.

I agree with Elon on the whole eyes/cameras analogy, but the cameras are right up against the glass, while my eyes are a foot or two away, which makes "seeing" the raindrops a bit more challenging for the cameras. My eyes have a great overall view of the state of the windshield while the cameras can only view a thumbnail portion and at a distance the cameras can't focus on. This leaves me quite skeptical as to the potential success of the cameras ever correctly identifying when the wipers should operate.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Knowing Elon they will be able to predict when rain will fall on your windshield and prep the wipers even before the drops hit the glass.

 

[holmgang]

Knowing Elon they will be able to predict when rain will fall on your windshield and prep the wipers even before the drops hit the glass.

the sunshine never stops pumpin

 

[user212_nr]

I agree with Elon on the whole eyes/cameras analogy, but the cameras are right up against the glass, while my eyes are a foot or two away, which makes "seeing" the raindrops a bit more challenging for the cameras. My eyes have a great overall view of the state of the windshield while the cameras can only view a thumbnail portion and at a distance the cameras can't focus on. This leaves me quite skeptical as to the potential success of the cameras ever correctly identifying when the wipers should operate.

I wouldn't underestimate the ability of those "out of focus" images to have a correlation which can be discovered and matched to a reasonable wiper setting.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Wow, a thread about teslas windshield wipers! This is new, I bet this is the first time someone has posted about this!

Wow, a post about how 'this topic has already been discussed!' This is new; I bet this is the first time someone has posted about this!

 

[SlimJim]

I agree with Elon on the whole eyes/cameras analogy, but the cameras are right up against the glass, while my eyes are a foot or two away, which makes "seeing" the raindrops a bit more challenging for the cameras. My eyes have a great overall view of the state of the windshield while the cameras can only view a thumbnail portion and at a distance the cameras can't focus on. This leaves me quite skeptical as to the potential success of the cameras ever correctly identifying when the wipers should operate.

You are correct.

Tesla tries to reinvent the wheel and fails.
On some things Tesla needs to just go with what works.

 

[SlimJim]

Sometimes the headlights come on when I drive under big trees and it is not that dark. It makes it look like I am flashing my lights.

 

[CertLive]

This makes me think does the neural net timeout or go to sleep? I have also found sometimes you need to say wake the hell up! Then it becomes self aware of the rain and most of the time acts to fight it.

 

[SSonnentag]

Sometimes the headlights come on when I drive under big trees and it is not that dark. It makes it look like I am flashing my lights.

For the last 2-3 firmware updates my headlights come on and off at random times during full daylight, even without the aid of trees and shadows. It's very odd.

 

[alexGS]

Knowing Elon they will be able to predict when rain will fall on your windshield and prep the wipers even before the drops hit the glass.

Or perhaps a Tesla will see the wipers in use on other vehicles coming the other way, and turn its own wipers on, which should work nicely until most vehicles on the road are other Teslas.

-Alex

 

[jjrandorin]

Wow, a post about how 'this topic has already been discussed!' This is new; I bet this is the first time someone has posted about this!

Thanks! I thought it was fairly original

 

[BennyMountfort]

Nope.

In the long term you save $100 on every car you ever build going forward from the change.

Even at 100k cars (pre-model 3) that's 10 million dollars a year saved.


Tesla built like 367,500 cars in 2019... that's 36.7 million in savings at $100 per car.

You can pay quite a few programmers with that. (even if it were a $10 sensor it's be over 3.67 million saved, more than enough to hire a dozen programmers for this ONE task and still be well in the black)


And the savings amount goes UP every year as they build more and more cars.

Looking at savings north of 50 million bucks in 2020 (well, pending impact of virus shutdowns I guess)

Good Point just need it to work properly now...