Please, please, please Tesla - could you add intermittent wipers?

[strider]

It's under Vehicle (and disabled since it's completely worthless) on my AP 2.5 car.

The non-AP (and I think AP1 also) had a dedicated rain sensor that worked extremely well. The camera method on AP2+ does not work at all.

 

[bell2041]

The long-suffering Karpathy explained @25:25 that the horror of Tesla Autowipers results purely from another superfluous diktat by Musk :

That you for that video. From it, we now understand that this is 100% Elon's fault for not including the rain sensor, and we can all stop expecting a software fix. yet again Elon is trying to come up with it's "own bicycle" (like the saying, don't try to come up with your own bicycle if it already exists)

There is an easy solution for that. Tesla can do a different setting for manual intermittent settings based on speed. I had this on my Acura 2009 and it works fine, sometimes better than auto wipers.

Basically, the idea is that you are moving, the highest intermittent setting will start wipers none stop, once you stop the car (on a red light for example) it slowed them down to what it is now on. That is super easy to implement but they are not doing ANYTHING. It personally drives me crazy.

 

[posity]

Thanks so much to OPRCE for that video. Really eye-opening. When Andrej Karpathy, one of the world's foremost experts on Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks (NN), explains that using a NN to run windshield wipers is an extraordinarily complex problem (that has yet to be solved), I will take his word for it.

This also explains why so many folks here claim their experience with the auto wipers has been great and my experience has been so incredibly bad. It's about whether their particular rain drops scenarios on their windows match the deep learning training scenarios that Tesla has 'refined' for the vehicles. Bay Area folks are in the ideal scenario: these cars have been refined for the Bay Area.

Using NN for wipers, apparently an edict from Elon, is just insanity. This is an example of using a 10 pound sledge hammer to drive finishing nails: Tesla needs to use the right tool for the job (a tried-and-true rain sensor).

I did try disabling the auto-wipers and going to the two intermittent wiper settings. Still not a good fit for here in the Pacific Northwest. We constantly get these rainy/drizzly all-over-the-map days. I miss the auto wipers of my old Cadillac that I left in the On position all year round because they just always worked.

I love my Model X, but I can say without a doubt, I will NEVER buy another Tesla until this problem is properly fixed (get rid of the darn NN auto-wipers Elon)! There is so very much that is great about these cars, but when you can't drive it in Pacific Northwest common weather scenarios without constantly pressing the manual button on the stalk, I would never recommend one of these cars to a friend without first explaining the horrid wipers.

 

[BigMskiman]

Don't BOTHER buying another! I will just completely enjoy this fine car while you complain about the small stuff.

 

[xyeahtony]

im so glad im not so bored i have to record videos of my wipers in action while driving in the rain.

 

[UncaNed]

I'd like an intermittent wiper option.

 

[aaron0k]

im so glad im not so bored i have to record videos of my wipers in action while driving in the rain.

But bored enough to sit a keyboard and post about not being bored... 1900+ posts since 2017? Dude, you're bored...

 

[jeffro01]

Does it work the same for you? Do you call it "work great" or "working well"?
Please confirm that it works better for you

My X is May 2018 production.
When I bought Tesla I was under impression that this is a company with good software company practices where it listens to people, but in reality, Tesla is only listening to Elon, I'm waiting for a fix for 7 months now and what I learned is if it's not important for Elon you can all suck it

Yes, mine work better than what I saw in your videos. The first video I don't see any issues with to start but the second one where it's misting really heavily and getting worse as you're driving, we just had the same kind of weather the other day and mine worked fine in the same conditions.

This is why it's still in beta I suspect, they're close but not quite 100% in all situations at all times. I also have to caution I haven't had an opportunity to test night time performance.

Jeff

 

[mknox]

The ap2 auto wipers work well in heavy steady rain. It has a tough time with drizzle

Mine work somewhat better in heavy rain than drizzle (where they are useless), but they still don't work well. In a "regular" steady rain, they start off okay, then for no reason go into "high speed" mode, even if I adjust the sensitivity, they still flap like crazy. At that point, I just twist the knob into normal low mode.

The non-AP (and I think AP1 also) had a dedicated rain sensor that worked extremely well. The camera method on AP2+ does not work at all.

My 2013 S85 with the dedicated sensor was just as bad. And no mechanism to "fall back" to normal intermittent functionality.

Honestly, I don't know what is so hard about this. Every other car I've owned have worked really well.

The auto wipers are not the greatest, but the auto high beams are great!

Yeah, my auto high beams seem to work well. However, I only use it out on country roads because in urban areas, where you don't really need high beams anyway, things like street lights will confuse the sensor.

 

[xyeahtony]

But bored enough to sit a keyboard and post about not being bored... 1900+ posts since 2017? Dude, you're bored...

I probably am bored. Even the tiniest whining by grown adults entertains me. Of course the post count just indicates i'm a productive member of the TMC community. If that's supposed to be an insult, thats funny since a lot more people have more posts than me.

 

[ek993]

I probably am bored. Even the tiniest whining by grown adults entertains me. Of course the post count just indicates i'm a productive member of the TMC community. If that's supposed to be an insult, thats funny since a lot more people have more posts than me.

You do seem to be forgiving and overly defensive of any and all Tesla shortcomings. I will leave it at that.

With regards to the rain sensing wipers - they are the most useless I have ever experienced. Does that mean my X is a bad car or that I don’t like it? Absolutely not I love it, but am I able to admit to its shortcomings, be critical and hope that Tesla can improve where it comes up short? Absolutely.

 

[_jmk]

Umm, wonder why this doesn’t just try wiping the windshield every time the amount of objects identified drops suddenly? Don’t identify raindrops, identify lack of visibility.

 

[_jmk]

I feel tempted to call tesla that i can do the code for you and i need 50 lines of code max . One for loop that reads the amount of objects identified and if that drops, try a wipe. If that helped, wipe some more...

 

[Mjølner]

It's a design flaw. The "camera sensor" is placed direct in the curve of the glass(red area).
The wind drag(green) kind of "blows " the rain away from the sensor, but the windshield it self is full of water drops.
It seem to work in heavy rain, as long as its daylight. After darkness, it's totally useless.

 

[rush6410]

View attachment 370041 It's a design flaw. The "camera sensor" is placed direct in the curve of the glass(red area).
The wind drag(green) kind of "blows " the rain away from the sensor, but the windshield it self is full of water drops.
It seem to work in heavy rain, as long as its daylight. After darkness, it's totally useless.

Exactly. I was going to try to explain the same thing that I have observed. You can clearly see the part of the windshield that detects the rain stays pretty clear. You explained it very clearly and better than me. I agree.

The positive is AP sees clearer than the driver.