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

[spdpsba]

Anyone know how much a rain sensor costs?

I don’t think that is the issue as others pointed out.

Auto-wiping systems are already developed with the help of rain sensors. But the employment of separate sensor for the various tasks (cruise control, wipers, headlights, parking etc.,) is not desirable from the viewpoint of space, appearance, cost, maintenance etc. The single vision sensor employed in the Tesla can be used for many vision-based applications like distance adjustment between cars from leading vehicle recognition, self-steering from white line recognition, automatic braking systems from pedestrian recognition and so on.

These systems also detect raindrops on the windshield and automatically turn on and adjust the wiper system in accordance with the intensity of the rain. The following paper gives some explanation regarding how complex this activity is and why Tesla needs more and more data and drivers input to optimise this.

Vision-based rain sensing with an in-vehicle camera

An intelligent wiper speed adjustment system can be found in most middle and upper class cars. A core piece of this gadget is the rain sensor on the windshield. With the upcoming number of cars being equipped with an in-vehicle camera for vision-based applications the call for integrating all...

ieeexplore.ieee.org

I understand as a buyer you don’t need a scientific paper on top of the manual explaining the rain sensors when you are paying £50000. But these are real issues and Tesla can’t just sacrifice the whole for the some of its parts just because the parts works in other vehicles!

Unfortunately that is the cost of innovation not ideology as someone else mentioned!

 

[Durzel]

Tesla could learn all of this information whilst providing owners with a sensor that actually works.

I have no problem with Tesla scraping data from my car for a vision-based rain detection system to come to fruition in X years time, but in the meantime - while I actually own and drive the car - I'd kinda like the wipers to be reliable and not noticeably ineffectual. I don't think that's too much to ask when buying a £50k+ car.

Also I find the idea that a traditional rain sensor embedded in the array at the top of the windscreen is "not desireable from the viewpoint of space, appearance, cost and maintenance" to be straining credulity quite a bit. There is already a blocked off part of the windscreen for sensors, adding another one will require negligible additional space and will be unnoticed by the owner. The cost is essentially nominal - as they are a refined technology that is mass produced, and as for maintenance - what maintenance do IR rain sensors require? They are dumb as far as tech goes, all the software needs to do is read whatever signals it produces and act accordingly.

 

[spdpsba]

Tesla could learn all of this information whilst providing owners with a sensor that actually works.

I have no problem with Tesla scraping data from my car for a vision-based rain detection system to come to fruition in X years time, but in the meantime - while I actually own and drive the car - I'd kinda like the wipers to be reliable and not noticeably ineffectual. I don't think that's too much to ask when buying a £50k+ car.

Also I find the idea that a traditional rain sensor embedded in the array at the top of the windscreen is "not desireable from the viewpoint of space, appearance, cost and maintenance" to be straining credulity quite a bit. There is already a blocked off part of the windscreen for sensors, adding another one will require negligible additional space and will be unnoticed by the owner. The cost is essentially nominal - as they are a refined technology that is mass produced, and as for maintenance - what maintenance do IR rain sensors require? They are dumb as far as tech goes, all the software needs to do is read whatever signals it produces and act accordingly.

This is again becoming a circular argument - at the end of the day you have your views and expectations and I have mine and loads of others have theirs! Irrespective of the glitches I would always go for a Tesla if I am buying an EV, any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Now it is up to you what you want to do with that £50000-

 

[Hurricane]

This is again becoming a circular argument - at the end of the day you have your views and expectations and I have mine and loads of others have theirs! Irrespective of the glitches I would always go for a Tesla if I am buying an EV, any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Now it is up to you what you want to do with that £50000-

Back to the same argument - if you’re not happy with the diabolically crap windscreen wipers, auto headlights etc then p*ss off and buy something else. A more positive suggestion would be for Tesla to fix the damn things, which they could do for minimal cost.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Moderator comment:

Thread has served its purpose - some annoyed with current performance. Some think those annoyed shouldn’t be or should go and buy something else. Few actually think they work well.

Thread closed