Looking at it does not work typically if it is residue. I've seen plenty of cases in the forums where people thought it was clean and then after cleaning the camera area thoroughly, it solved the issue. There's also cases where there is residue/haze inside the housing.
I'm not saying that is the only cause of wipers activating or not that is inconsistent with driver desires, just saying that is one example of an obvious cause that I observed myself.
Obviously if "Tesla has no choice but to provide cleaning for the windshield cameras" that means the part of the windshield through which the camera is looking out needs wiping. We can argue whether wiping the glass in front of the camera, or its lens, or perhaps the actual semiconductor sensor constitutes "wiping the camera" but for the purposes of this discussion it's a distinction without a difference.
As another mentioned, it's not necessarily the only camera that might need wiping, but the front camera is the primary camera for AP/FSD. There's been tests done that AP/FSD can function even with all other cameras covered, but the primary camera must be active for it to work at all. This makes sense given how the system evolved from AP1 (which only had one camera in the front).
I can't speak of other cars, but my BMW 5 series has the IR source-sensor pair located just a hair below where the front camera unit is located in Teslas.
I swear I'm honestly not sure what you're getting at. The point of my response had nothing to do with a picky criticism of that exact wording - it's just that it was your own wording. Putting it differently, I meant Tesla has no choice but to clear away the occlusions that the camera sees.
This works because the traditional rain sensors are actively sending IR out and measure the return. The IR spreads across a large area of the windshield so a tiny emitter/sensor can detect water on almost any part of the windshield.
Yes, I made that observation based on BMW sensors. They are slightly lower than where Tesla puts their cameras (thus the eye vs nose analogy I put). As mentioned up thread, this has advantages to the rain sensor for their intended purpose of keeping the driver's view clear, as it is closer to head level. However, the point is wherever it is, it'll be separate from the camera sensor and doesn't work like the human eyes analogy where detection is on the eyeball itself (while the camera NN would be closer to that eyelash analogy).
The issue, in considering the IR sensor's more human-friendly result, is not so much the location on the windshield. It mostly has to do with the way the IR sensor actually works: the IR light path is oblique, i.e. shallow to the windshield. This accomplishes several things. Optically, it maximizes the scattering or reflective glare property of moisture against the windshield surface. (You can note that the best way to see dirt and film on your windshield is to park the car generally facing, but somewhat angled, to a low rising or setting sun. Same principle.) Geometrically, the oblique angle looking for reflections from emitters on one side of the assembly, across a bit of the glass surface to receivers on the other side of the assembly, allows a relatively small module to maximize the area coverage as well as the glare angles.
This not how the BMW IR sensor works. It is mounted within a cutout and it can only sense backscatter of IR within the cutout.
That is a fine solution for a dedicated camera wiper. The issue is that the windshield visibility is shared between 2 clients - the camera, and the human driver inside. This means both clients' needs need to be considered when deciding how to clean it. Just because camera can still see, doesn't mean the human can, so if you make the wiper algorithm only trigger on when the camera cannot see, it's equally bad as if you made it just for the human and ignore the camera needs.
I have been making this point the whole time, the NN solution is optimized for the camera's view, while rain sensors are traditionally optimized for the human (their position and design is for this purpose). I think the person you are responding previously to is just saying that even with a rain sensor, Tesla would still very likely have need the rain sensing NN for the camera (so given that, they decided to drop the rain sensor).
That is the decision I've been trying to argue as ludicrous. The opposite would be drop NN in lieu of an IR sensor - just as bad. There are two separate needs, Tesla has no excuse to just fulfilling one, unless of course Tesla owners are just seen as negative priced test drivers for the development of Tesla autonomous driving technology, then sure, it makes sense to drop any luxuries for humans (like automatic wipers) as long as the windshield if clean enough for the camera.
Also, the front camera gets a direct hit where as the B puller cameras and reverse side cameras do not. The other practical side is there’s a wiper for the front camera.
This never happened to me until, after 60K miles, I replaced the wipers. Now it happens a few times per month.
You need to drill holes in your bumpers and add the holders back (which are plastic welded to the bumpers), plus the wiring harness is probably gone. Just removing the bumpers is a whole ordeal.
That’s what makes me think ’supply issues’ is not the issue. (FWIW I’ve only seen that posited here, never from any official source or from anyone with access to a source.)
Why should you pay them to put something back on a brand new car when they didn't even reduce the cost to make up for the lost sensors in the first place?
