The auto wipers are............working!

[Occhis]

Driving today in scattered rain showers. Auto wipers worked great as long as it stayed cloudy. As soon as the sun started to peek out, wipers started working erratically. It seems when the sky gets brighter but still raining, the wiping frequency slows. This is consistent with my past experience. The amount of light or the direction it comes from has an effect on the sensor.

 

[mswlogo]

The auto wipers will work in the exact conditions they were tested in

 

[adjacentengels]

The difference between this and most of the (recent) history of cars is that the wiper controls were on the steering column so you could activate them without taking your attention away from the road, which is even more critical in rain. While you can get a single wipe from the column you have to look over at the screen to adjust the manual speed of the wipers. Having to look away from the road to activate a safety-critical function in weather that has already reduced visibility is a poor design.

 

[StellarRat]

They have definitely been improving. Comparing the wiper performance from July 2018 to now, I can see huge difference. I've never taken mine off automatic. It rains a lot where I live, BTW.

 

[Occhis]

The difference between this and most of the (recent) history of cars is that the wiper controls were on the steering column so you could activate them without taking your attention away from the road, which is even more critical in rain. While you can get a single wipe from the column you have to look over at the screen to adjust the manual speed of the wipers. Having to look away from the road to activate a safety-critical function in weather that has already reduced visibility is a poor design.

Completely agree. Although it seems to me the software can be tweaked more accurately to meet a wider range of conditions. I would rather they wiped too often than not often enough.

 

[MrBadger]

Driving today in scattered rain showers. Auto wipers worked great as long as it stayed cloudy. As soon as the sun started to peek out, wipers started working erratically. It seems when the sky gets brighter but still raining, the wiping frequency slows. This is consistent with my past experience. The amount of light or the direction it comes from has an effect on the sensor.

May be the reason why VW wipers (and I think BMW our car before) needed the dimmable rear view mirror option for its rear facing light sensor.

 

[Occhis]

They have definitely been improving. Comparing the wiper performance from July 2018 to now, I can see huge difference. I've never taken mine off automatic. It rains a lot where I live, BTW.

Makes me wonder how bad they were a year ago! Hope they keep working on it.

 

[Knightshade]

The difference between this and most of the (recent) history of cars is that the wiper controls were on the steering column so you could activate them without taking your attention away from the road, which is even more critical in rain.

The difference between recent cars and this one is this one doesn't have an actual rain sensor at all. It's just using the cameras to guess if it is, and how much, it's raining.


If it did have a real sensor as everyone else uses, the auto setting could work perfectly 100% of the time, as it did for 11 years on my Lexus, and nobody would care how the wiper controls worked because you'd never need to touch them.

 

[StellarRat]

Makes me wonder how bad they were a year ago! Hope they keep working on it.

The biggest problem a year ago was they took a long time to decide they should turn themselves on. By that time your windshield was completely covered and the visibility was compromised. Also, they tended to swing wildly from barely on to maximum speed. Now they are much more like "a human" is running them.

 

[Kimmo57]

My wipers suck. They hardly ever work with light rain and even when they finally wipe, they're too slow. They do wipe when I drive into a tunnel, whether the glass is wet or not.

 

[Poopercharge]

My wipers suck. They hardly ever work with light rain and even when they finally wipe, they're too slow. They do wipe when I drive into a tunnel, whether the glass is wet or not.

Agreed. They are far too slow to respond, very inconsistent in speed from even just wipe-to-wipe, and don't go fast enough in heavy rain. I cannot believe people use these on Auto anywhere with rainy weather. And when they go crazy clearing the windshield when you first get in a wet car, it's kind of embarrassing. I wouldn't be complaining if the controls were a physical stalk. If you go with digital controls, the Auto should work perfectly.

 

[lolder]

Mine now work fine in Florida. Drizzle to downpour.

 

[Marcin411]

The auto wipers will ONLY work in the exact conditions they were tested in

There, that's better, now I can stop complaining about the rain and the kids stepping on my lawn.

 

[adjacentengels]

The difference between recent cars and this one is this one doesn't have an actual rain sensor at all. It's just using the cameras to guess if it is, and how much, it's raining.

I completely agree. What I would have preferred would have been to install the hardware of a known working solution, and let that drive the wipers. In the background, let your cameras and software do their thing in the background and report what they would do to a micro that would monitor and compare the two systems. Use that to develop your camera/software solution without giving your consumers a mostly worthless wiper solution. When your algorithms get good enough you can switch over and stop building the sensor hardware into new cars.

 

[ZOMGVTEK]

My wipers came on full speed today in warm sunny weather. Stopped at a light, nothing going on, clear glass. I let it go in the hopes it would calm down, but after 15-20 seconds I turned the wipers off since they were just blasting away. I’m not so convinced this camera based auto wiper system is the best. The last time it rained, they worked perfectly pulling out of the garage. After I parked, they didn’t come back on even though the glass was soaked and it was raining hard. Really weird system, sometimes they work perfect, other times they’re about as bad as you’d expect is possible.

 

[EVnut]

Had a new one today. I'm on the latest version of the firmware for my car (for like the first time ever).

Driving on a dirt road, behind (far behind) another car. So I'm driving into his light dust that's kicked into the air. I'm staying far enough behind to avoid most of it, and to enjoy good visibility.

And then the auto wipers kick on... dragging all the dust and grit across my glass. Of course not a single drop of rain. But I guess some dust looks like rain. Not too happy about that incident.

 

[VT_EE]

Dust could also trigger a traditional infrared sensor depending on how much dirt was on your windshield.

 

[EVnut]

Yeah. Not enough to even notice the dust, and certainly not enough to consider taking any action to clear it.

I drove that same road under similar conditions about 10 times this weekend. And it never triggered the wipers again. Windshield was never cleaned.

 

[Phlier]

Anyway I don't need to worry about rain for another 6 years or so.

You live in SoCal, so I fixed it for you.

Since the sample size on the windshield is so small for the camera to "see" the water droplets, IMO, they're never going to get it completely right; the randomness of water droplets requires a greater surface sampling area... the more area that can be "sampled" or "seen", the more accurate the system will be. But even with a huge sample area size, it will still be impossible for them to get it perfect since everyone's opinion on what "right" is for when to wipe the windshield is different.

I've only had the opportunity to use my auto wipers a few times in my car so far, but they have worked great every time.

 

[galan]

You live in SoCal, so I fixed it for you.

Since the sample size on the windshield is so small for the camera to "see" the water droplets, IMO, they're never going to get it completely right; the randomness of water droplets requires a greater surface sampling area... the more area that can be "sampled" or "seen", the more accurate the system will be. But even with a huge sample area size, it will still be impossible for them to get it perfect since everyone's opinion on what "right" is for when to wipe the windshield is different.

I've only had the opportunity to use my auto wipers a few times in my car so far, but they have worked great every time.

Hanging from my rear view mirror, my after-market rain-sensing pixie always gets it right, even if Tesla's rain sensor doesn't...