I had a situation yesterday. My Model Y front and rear bumpers were covered with ice and snow causing the vehicle to think that it was blocked by some objects and refused to allow me to move the vehicle. After trying to debug for a while, I came to this realization and cleaned off the snow and ice, and this resolved the situation and allowed me to move the vehicle. Does anyone encounter the same situation? Thanks.
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Snow and Ice effect on sensors
- Thread starter Cptvn
- Start date
Would this be an issue when the vehicle is moving? Could it lead to a sudden stop?
Preconditioning will defrost the Autopilot cameras, radar array, parking sensors and de-ice the charging port. Depending on temperature and weather you may need to precondition for at least 30 minutes. Use a snow brush to clear snow and ice off the front hood, roof and rear glass. You will also need to clear snow and ice from the headlights and tail lights as the LEDs do not generate enough heat to melt snow and ice.
LevelHeaded
Member
The vehicle should be usable even if you don’t have 30 minutes to precondition it. And, the vehicle should be usable if the radars aren’t functioning. There is still a driver, after all
sleepydoc
Well-Known Member
I have an Audi A4 that has some sensors for collision warning, bumper object proximity, etc and those will become non-functional when they get iced over. If your glasses are fogged up, you can’t see, right? The should still be drivable, however, just without autopilot, etc.
Mike_TV
Active Member
Actually, yes and no. Last week while driving on the highway in snow, I had a slush buildup on the front bumper which eventually caused the radar to declare itself inoperative, and as a consequence autopilot became unavailable. At the same time, snow accumulated on the rear bumper and blocked the parking sensors so I got a constant "Stop" warning when I backed up. Neither had a direct impact on the operation of the vehicle but autopilot stayed off until I cleaned the bumper manually.
Mike_TV
Active Member
This happened to me recently on a short drive. Blowing, wet snow caused a slight build up on snow on the front bumper and prevented AP from activating. Radar wasn't working properly. The whole bumper should be heated!
Yes, but in those conditions you shouldn't be using autopilot anyway so it's probably not worth the cost and energy consumption. Still, it makes one wonder how FSD can be practical for all weather conditions.....This happened to me recently on a short drive. Blowing, wet snow caused a slight build up on snow on the front bumper and prevented AP from activating. Radar wasn't working properly. The whole bumper should be heated!
I have been driving my MY regularly in severe snow conditions to and from Mount Hood Meadows (with a 162" base at the lodge). Have not had any driving problems but get various warnings of blocked sensors (some of these are even on sunny snow free days). The backup camera has gotten covered many times and it still will allow me to back up (looking at the mirrors and side cameras). I have also noticed that sometimes the parking/proximity sensors get un accurate when covered. This has some jeopardy in that it indicates it is safe to proceed when something is really getting too close.
I have only tried autopilot in the snow a few times and most of the time it will not engage or turn off shortly after engagement.
The pre heating/defrost works great. I turn on the defrost with my phone at the top of my last ski run and by the time I get to the car it is warm and the windshield is wet or at least easy to clear without having to scrape any ice. Many times it has been much more covered with snow and ice than the picture above shows.
SFNM Jack
Fueled by the Sun…
Driving in snow last night on I-25 outside Santa Fe, NM. Medium intensity, certainly not whiteout but it was coming down at a decent clip. Got a series of forward collision warnings (3 separate occasions) from my 2022 MYLR. No braking or slow downs but some serious fireworks and an intense sound track on the touch screen which freaked out my passengers both of whom happened to be first time Tesla riders. (Not a good sales pitch Tesla). Was not using Autopilot or TACC because who does that with bad road conditions. Another interesting artifact from this event was that the auto-wiper function was not working properly. The windshield was very wet with snow building up but auto-wiper did not come on. Yes it was turned on. I had to go to manual. I did this prior to the forward collision events. There was no snow buildup on the windshield that might have caused the collision warnings because as I said I had to move the wipers to manual and they were clearing the windshield quite effectively. Can’t speak about the bumper since I was moving at 60 mph. I guess the sonic sensors could have been blocked but as I understand it these are for slow speed use only so should not be in play here.
Anyway, anyone have similar experiences or potential explanation to what may have happened?
Anyway, anyone have similar experiences or potential explanation to what may have happened?
sleepydoc
Well-Known Member
Hard to say for sure what was going on. The auto wipers use the camera behind the rear view mirror. If the area by the camera is clear but the windshield is not (or vice versa) you can get a discrepancy. Having said that, Tesla's auto wipers are far from perfect and I've had plenty of errors with them in both directions.
As far as the collision warning goes, I don't know if the collision warning system uses the ultrasonic sensors or just the cameras. if the cameras were occluded by snow that may have been enough to cause the issues. I personally haven't had anything like this after 2 winters with my Y.
