Oh those wipers (again, I know...)

[rincewind]

So, just as I thought it was safe.... Recently during daytime driving the auto wipers have, at long last been pretty good. At last, I thought, some progress. Until it rained last night. They would absolutely not turn on, and it was raining fairly hard and constantly. I checked that they were still on Auto, yep, they were. In the end, after over a minute like this, I was left with no choice but to manually override. I am now convinced Tesla will never get this to be as good as a car with a dedicated sensor.

 

[debrooker]

Yep

 

[Durzel]

Not only am I not convinced they will ever get it as good as a car with a regular rain sensor, I'm convinced they can't.

Rain sensors beam out IR light and detect refractions off the windscreen. It is a pretty robust system for detecting moisture on the screen. IR isn't affected by time of day, or glare, or any of the number of things that basically cripple the camera that's trying to do the same job.

I have seen no development or improvement in the car's ability to "detect rain", likewise with auto headlights, despite the fact people seem to think it has improved after every update (based on a sample size of one and one or two drives where the planets were in alignment and it didn't perform as poorly as it usually does). I think people want to believe it has improved and convince themselves of that, but sadly I don't think Tesla care about improving it and in the case of rain sensing - probably can't achieve much more with the wrong hardware for the job than they already have.

 

[DickiJ]

I wouldn't mind the auto-wipers not working well, if it wasn't such a damn PITA to adjust them manually. Driving on the motorway the other day, where it was mostly spray from other vehicles, was infuriating. Auto-wipers didn't activate once, usually stuck behind a vehicle spraying long enough tapping the end of the stalk is laborious, whilst changing permanently to any on setting would result in dry wiping in a couple of minutes.

Genuinely disappointing.

 

[debrooker]

Never a fan of auto wipers on any of my cars i've never found them to work the way I would like.

In the absense of physical wiper speed selector I would be happy accept pressing the wipe button if it cycled through a couple of speeds, rather than the press, try and guess where to put your finger, before realising you missed and have to press, look down and try again shenanigans

 

[Durzel]

For a car that is basically the "self driving car", the fact the software can't see distant rear lights and turn off headlights, or turn them back on in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. not several seconds later), and not know to turn them off in areas with increased ambient lighting, etc is just ridiculous. My 2013 Audi did this pretty much perfectly and a 2021 Peugeot e-2008 I had recently - half the price of my Model 3 - did it flawlessly.

Auto wipers on the Peugeot worked perfectly too, I never needed to change its behaviour from "auto" in all the time I drove it (~2 months in a mixture of night and day and all weathers).

 

[prabhu]

For a car that is basically the "self driving car", the fact the software can't see distant rear lights and turn off headlights, or turn them back on in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. not several seconds later), and not know to turn them off in areas with increased ambient lighting, etc is just ridiculous. My 2013 Audi did this pretty much perfectly and a 2021 Peugeot e-2008 I had recently - half the price of my Model 3 - did it flawlessly.

Auto wipers on the Peugeot worked perfectly too, I never needed to change its behaviour from "auto" in all the time I drove it (~2 months in a mixture of night and day and all weathers).

Valid feedback. However, doubt any self-driving cars would be allowed nighttime journeys in the next few years. This thread appears like known limitations due to lack of sensors and radars.

 

[ElectricMagma]

It will be interesting to see if the auto headlights change now that they are allowed to use both low and highbeams together. The premise being that instead of turning of highbeams to oncoming cars, they can move and block the highbeams from the other drivers view.

To stay on topic, i hate the tesla wipers.

Even when it does turn on when its supposed to, it never turns off when its supposed to. I always get 4 or 5 extra wipes to ensure whatever is there is smeared on the windshield, and i have to use the juice.

 

[Doudeau]

Auto wipers on the Peugeot worked perfectly too, I never needed to change its behaviour from "auto" in all the time I drove it (~2 months in a mixture of night and day and all weathers).

Interesting that I was driving yesterday and kept having to force the wipers on when driving my Peugeot e208. Personally I’ve not found them to be better (or worse) than my M3. Then again I found my 2010 BMW 5GT was impeccable on auto wipers where my 2015 BMW 5GT (higher spec model) was not as good . Maybe it’s me .

 

[Bernard_S]

So, just as I thought it was safe.... Recently during daytime driving the auto wipers have, at long last been pretty good. At last, I thought, some progress. Until it rained last night. They would absolutely not turn on, and it was raining fairly hard and constantly. I checked that they were still on Auto, yep, they were. In the end, after over a minute like this, I was left with no choice but to manually override. I am now convinced Tesla will never get this to be as good as a car with a dedicated sensor.

I think you are being a bit hard on Tesla there, in the early days (2019) the auto wipers were totally useless, now they are only fairly useless a lot of the time.
I only just installed 40.5 today, is this what caused this latest problem ?

Still, we can have the car in fancy colours on screen, did anybody ask for that ?

 

[Beasts]

We must be pretty lucky with our 2021 S LR. The worst thing I have noticed about our wipers is that they are a bit too "aggressive." They turn on and I'm thinking that they really weren't needed yet. And they can be a bit slow adapting to a sudden change, such as spray from a semi, but not much slower than I would have been to do it manually. Over all, never having had automatic wipers before, I'm pleased with not having to do all of the adjusting my self. One of the advantages to not owning a luxury or performance car previously to compare to.

 

[SalisburySam]

For a car that is basically the "self driving car", the fact the software can't see distant rear lights and turn off headlights, or turn them back on in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. not several seconds later), and not know to turn them off in areas with increased ambient lighting, etc is just ridiculous. My 2013 Audi did this pretty much perfectly and a 2021 Peugeot e-2008 I had recently - half the price of my Model 3 - did it flawlessly.

One additional datapoint: my 1968 Cadillac sensed and controlled the high beams very, very well. This is not new technology, just a new way to do it rather poorly.

 

[SalisburySam]

…we can have the car in fancy colours on screen, did anybody ask for that ?

“Gosh, I really, really wish my display car could be fuchsia.”
- No One Ever

 

[init6]

“Gosh, I really, really wish my display car could be fuchsia.”
- No One Ever

 

[Rooney1000]

I think they are totally useless, can rain lightly for a minute and you cant see out of the windscreen but they still dont come on. I constantly have to press the button in. Have driven many cars with auto wipers and all work brilliantly.

Same with auto high beam, I am fed up with driving 20m behind the car in front with my headlights on full beam as the car cant work out that it needs to turn them off, or blind oncoming drivers as it is so slow to turn off.

2 of the most simple things that are so poorly executed by Tesla.

 

[Mrklaw]

Anyone know how much a rain sensor costs?

 

[GRiLLA]

I think they are totally useless, can rain lightly for a minute and you cant see out of the windscreen but they still dont come on. I constantly have to press the button in. Have driven many cars with auto wipers and all work brilliantly.

Same with auto high beam, I am fed up with driving 20m behind the car in front with my headlights on full beam as the car cant work out that it needs to turn them off, or blind oncoming drivers as it is so slow to turn off.

2 of the most simple things that are so poorly executed by Tesla.

Have you raised these as issues with Tesla? Recorded some dashcam footage to show it?

Seriously, other Tesla don't do this. The autowipers are fine in the daylight, poor in the dark. The auto headlights have never done anything like that in my experience.

 

[GRiLLA]

Anyone know how much a rain sensor costs?

Next to nothing, but they always also need a 'sensitivity' wheel option on a stalk. Tesla's ethos is building a self driving car, so they would need to programme some kind of AI to adjust that sensitivity wheel anyway so why not shortcut requirement in the first place as humans can tell it's raining with their eyes.

 

[Jason71]

Anyone know how much a rain sensor costs?

I think its as much about ideology as cost. The lack of Waypoints for 8 years was not a cost issue either.

 

[Mrklaw]

Next to nothing, but they always also need a 'sensitivity' wheel option on a stalk. Tesla's ethos is building a self driving car, so they would need to programme some kind of AI to adjust that sensitivity wheel anyway so why not shortcut requirement in the first place as humans can tell it's raining with their eyes.

AI woudlnt’ even need to bother wiping - just have some tiny camera wipers