Palisades Parkway NY question

[PagodaY]

I've noticed the past few trips that my side cameras report being occluded in the same location time and time again. Just wondering what could be causing this issue.

Driving along the Palisades Parkway in NY, about 4 miles north of the intersection with I87, pretty consistently, I get the message that FSD may be degraded due to issues with the driver side cameras. This occurs both on the northbound and southbound sides.

2023 MYLR. HW4

At night (around 11pm), with no weather to speak of. No moisture on the road. After the first time I figured it was dirt on the cameras. I cleaned the cameras. Same issue. I looked on the Tesla web site and was informed that sometimes bad lane markings can cause this. I paid attention to this the next drive and the lane markings were all good, not brand new, but clear and solid. Traffic was normal, not sparse, not crowded.

The warning comes and goes for a few miles and then disappears. FSD does not disengage during these incidents. This particular road is somewhat curvy and hilly, not a modern interstate, but a limited access highway nonetheless (55mph speed limit). After leaving this parkway, the drive is on a secondary road (45mph) that is also curvy and hilly with decent lane markings and the issue does not present itself.

Any suggestions as to the cause?

 

[KArnold]

Any suggestions as to the cause?

That's not uncommon on dark nights with nothing (street lights, businesses, etc.) to put ar least a minimal amount of light to the side.

 

[PagodaY]

That's what I thought also, but further on north, where the traffic thins out quite a bit and it's in a more rural (no lights) area, the issue doesn't repeat itself.

This is not a big deal seeing as how FSD never bails, but just a curious thing.

 

[KArnold]

Although decent moonlight, low cloud reflections, or even other cars might influence this too. Seems total darkness is too little light - the trick is now much does it need? My guess is just a touch of light is enough, i.e. enough to let the computer to differentiate between the road/road lines via the side cameras as it rolls down the road.

Just a swag of course.

 

[RTPEV]

Somewhat timely post for me...

Yesterday we were driving home from our son's on I-95 and I-85. Weather was fine (sunny, dry). But on the second leg of the trip, after the sun had set, my wife kept getting a beep and a popup saying that FSD was degraded due to possible occlusion of one of the side cameras (didn't mention which). So okay, FSD didn't "bail" and the message went away pretty quickly. I guess we thought that maybe we had picked up some dirt on the camera, but reading the above makes me think that possibly it's simply because that particular section of I-85 in Virginia is tree lined and very dark, and maybe the car just didn't see anything. And even though @PagodaY reports that in a more rural section the problem doesn't occur, I wonder if there are at least some kind of reflective markers or road markings in that area that do help the car out.

But wow, was this ever annoying to have the damn thing beep every minute or two.