The auto wipers are disappointing all year, but they are FAR worse in the winter. Between the wide variety of winter driving conditions, temperatures, types/intensities of precipitation, salty water spray kicked up from the road by cars in front of you, etc., etc., etc., I've literally resorted to using the button on the end of the left stalk for the majority of my windshield wiping this winter. How pathetic is that.
Leaving it in Auto is literally unsafe, as is taking your eyes off the road to change the manual wiper setting via the touchscreen when visibility is becoming compromised in already-difficult driving conditions. (Wiping too fast or too slow can
both be problematic when dealing with ice and/or salt on a windshield, which is why it's important to have a way to quickly and safely adjust wiper speeds without taking your eyes off the road.)
This is why you fully design and validate key features of a car BEFORE going to production.
And you don't base tons of critical vehicle design decisions around a CEO's delusional pipe-dream goal of having cars built in 2017-19 self-driving around town like Uber robots in 5-10 years, particularly when doing so materially degrades the user experience for owners TODAY.