Touch screen control for wipers is dangerous

[VT_EE]

Maybe we have different rain than you guys, but autowipers have worked great for me Tap the button for a quick swipe, hold for a rinse or just let auto do its thing.

The quality of the Auto setting is highly dependent on the version of firmware you are running. The latest updates are significantly better than ones from a few months ago.

 

[jkeyser14]

THAT'S THE BEST LOL

It won't auto-swipe no matter how obstructed the view is while driving. But it can not have rained for 20 minutes, and yet, as soon as i get in the car the residual moisture on the windshield sends the blades into a manic frenzy.

Makes zero sense.

Yup, this is my car every morning due to dew. Yet heavy rain doesn't turn my wipers on half the time.

 

[AKinDC]

you can also hold down the button at the end of the stalk for continuous wipe.

But then you're shooting out wiper fluid, yes?

 

[travis1906]

Wipers certainly working much better with the latest software update. Even with the previous issues, I would call them “dangerous”

If it starts raining hard you simply hit the button on the stalk which brings up the wiper menu and hit the on button for the fastest rate. It takes about 1 SEC to do that. Not sure what all the fuss it about. Have to touch the screen for just about everything the car does in case anyone forgot.

 

[Glamisduner]

They work in the daytime allot better than at night where they hardly work at all. I constantly have to use the manual control. Also I have auto turned off due to phantom wipes these days. Nothing like having just cleaned your window only to have it activate for no reason and smear the days dust all over.

When people ask me what I do not like about the car I always say the windshield wipers. They look at me like I'm crazy as they think I'm going to say waiting for the battery to charge, but nope it's the wiper design!

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

This isn't about activating single wipes; it's about rain that suddenly starts coming down at a much heavier rate than it had been. When this happens, you want to increase the rate of wiping, but if either the Auto setting is not increasing the wiping level enough or it's set to a fixed-rate level, you'll have a problem. At this point, you need to take your eyes off the road and one hand off the wheel, in a situation in which your ability to see the road is already impaired by a big increase in rainfall, in order to adjust the wiper speed. It may only take a second or two, but I've been in situations in which this has been a bit unnerving, and if you got unlucky (another car doing something unexpected, a deer jumping into the road, etc.) an accident could result.

Most other cars I've driven have physical wiper controls on a steering-wheel stalk, so they can be operated entirely by feel. This is significantly safer than the Model 3's design in a scenario like the one I've just outlined.

Still don't see the big deal. Single wipe until it's safe to pull over and then do whatever you want. A deer jumping out while it's raining really hard is a rare occurrence to 98% of drivers.

 

[Zooner]

Yes, probably the thing I dislike the most about the car (which I otherwise love). I am baffled how anybody thought this was acceptable: the UI/UX designers at Tesla, the executives at Tesla, or the bureaucrats in any of the regulatory agencies around the world who have certified this car for sale. I still bought the car knowing full well about the wiper controls of course, but they are still super dumb (and dangerous).

I would love an aftermarket physical rotary switch. Get to it CAN bus hackers!

The whole UI is pretty bad. Software Ui developers must cringe.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

The whole UI is pretty bad. Software Ui developers must cringe.

Here's the solution , five screens and buttons and knobs and switches.

Audi E-Tron in Copenhagen | Motor1.com Photos

 

[Gondi63]

The quality of the Auto setting is highly dependent on the version of firmware you are running. The latest updates are significantly better than ones from a few months ago.

Sure, but this thread was posted <checks> yesterday, so I'm guessing people are on 16.x or 20.x.

FWIW, I'm in Tampa and have driven all over Florida in my HW3 P3D on 7.x, 16.x and 20.x and have been very happy with the auto-wipers. Maybe it's because I've never had other cars with autowipers and I don't know what I'm missing, but they turn on quickly for me at an appropriate speed, turn up as it hits "Florida 2pm downpour" and then turn off when it lets up.

I don't have any coatings on my windshield like Rainx or anything.

The only time I feel like I need to think about the wipers is when I'm cleaning a bug off with the washer fluid.

Maybe you guys need to drive faster so the rain can't catch you

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Don't know about you, I'd suck it up and save the $57K CAD and buy another Model 3 =P instead of complaining about wiper buttons.

 

[jdcollins5]

Another overly dramatic title! Dangerous??

My wipers work fine and I very seldom have the need to use the manual button. If I need to use the manual button, the control screen pops up if you need to change to manual control.

This is no more dangerous than the controls being on a stalk. What is the difference having to look down at a stalk or look at the screen?

 

[travis1906]

Meant to write I would NOT call them dangerous.

 

[MrBadger]

This is no more dangerous than the controls being on a stalk. What is the difference having to look down at a stalk or look at the screen?

Do you look at the stalk when you indicate left and right too? If you learned to use a stalk properly, you might understand why people find having to look at a screen a bit of an unnecessary and potentially dangerous action.

Any action whereby you have to take your eyes off the road is potentially dangerous.

 

[srs5694]

Well the model 3 does not work like that. The way it works is you press the stalk for a single wipe or continuous, and then if you like, you can easily press a manual selection. That's how the car works.

It may have changed, but AFAIK, there's no way to activate continuous wiper mode via the stalk, at least not in the Model 3 (this is the Model 3 forum); the stalk button will activate either a single wipe or a series of a few wipes in conjunction with a spray of wiper fluid. From Tesla's manual:

To perform a single wipe with the windshield wipers, press and immediately release the button on the end of the left-hand steering column lever.

Fully press and hold the button on the end of the left-hand steering column lever to spray washer fluid onto the windshield. While spraying the windshield, the wipers turn on. After releasing the button, the wipers perform two additional wipes, then a third wipe a few seconds later.

Part of the debate in this thread is about your "easily" claim. Pushing a button on a touch screen is fairly easy if you're sitting at a desk, on a couch, etc. If you're in a moving car, especially on a rough road, it's harder, because the car's irregular motion makes it harder to precisely touch a small area of the touch screen. If you're driving the car, it becomes harder still, because you've got to take your eyes off the road, locate the correct part of the screen, and touch it, all in as little time as possible. This takes time, during which time you're not looking at the road, which reduces safety.

Still don't see the big deal. Single wipe until it's safe to pull over and then do whatever you want.

That's fine if it's drizzling, but in a downpour it's not safe! Two or three times a year, I get caught in a situation in which there's either no rain or it starts light but then ramps up suddenly to much greater amounts of rain. In such conditions, there is no "until it's safe to pull over," because it's not safe to keep driving then, at least not without turning up the wiper speed. It's likely safer to use the Tesla's on-screen controls for this than to try to find a place to pull over, but it would be safer still to have controls on a steering wheel stalk to enable the driver to do it by feel. What's more, there are conditions when the level of rain increases and decreases frequently. That's what the Auto setting is supposed to handle, but in my experience, it does a middling job of that at best; so if you use fixed-interval wipers, you've got to be either adjusting them frequently or setting them ridiculously high even in modest rain. Advising drivers to pull over every two miles to adjust the wipers is ridiculous. Adding a $1 switch to the steering wheel stalk, or as Zooner suggests, programming a scroll wheel to pick up the slack for a few seconds after pushing the wiper-activation button, is a much better solution.

I encountered this problem for the first time in my Tesla on a road trip about a month ago. (I've owned the car for three months.) I used the on-screen controls to increase the wiper speed to maximum, since Auto wasn't running the wipers fast enough, but I wished that I could have done it by feel, the way I'd have done it in any other car I've driven.

A deer jumping out while it's raining really hard is a rare occurrence to 98% of drivers.

Sure. So is encountering a truck that skids and flips just in front of you. Tesla brags that its cars are engineered for safety, and that means protecting its occupants in the event of rare occurrences, whether that's a truck that skids and flips or a deer jumping in front of the car. Tesla's crashworthiness might well help in the event of colliding with a deer, but if better wiper controls let you avoid the deer in the first place, that's better still.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Capitalism my friend. Saving $1 per car per year is acceptable for the manufacture to pass the cost of totaling a car to a deer. If you don't like the wiper controls... hack it or buy another car. It is a free market.

 

[AKinDC]

I can't believe this is even an argument.
It's a massive overstatement to say the wiper layout is seriously dangerous, but, unless the auto wipers are working perfectly, I strongly prefer how the wipers work in any other car.
It's no big deal to me, but I can certainly admit it's not ideal.

 

[TMThree]

auto wipers work great for me, and i live in a state where it rains all the time.

I do wax my windshield, so water isn't able to stick to the glass, so that might be a difference.

 

[jdcollins5]

Do you look at the stalk when you indicate left and right too? If you learned to use a stalk properly, you might understand why people find having to look at a screen a bit of an unnecessary and potentially dangerous action.

Any action whereby you have to take your eyes off the road is potentially dangerous.

Any time I drive a car other than mine, yes I have to look at the stalk to make sure how it works. Every car seems to be different.

Left or right, give me a break. At least stay on topic.

 

[Gondi63]

It may have changed, but AFAIK, there's no way to activate continuous wiper mode via the stalk, at least not in the Model 3 (this is the Model 3 forum); the stalk button will activate either a single wipe or a series of a few wipes in conjunction with a spray of wiper fluid.

You can lightly press the button (not all the way) and hold it there for a few seconds and it will continue to swipe.

That's fine if it's drizzling, but in a downpour it's not safe! Two or three times a year, I get caught in a situation in which there's either no rain or it starts light but then ramps up suddenly to much greater amounts of rain. In such conditions, there is no "until it's safe to pull over," because it's not safe to keep driving then, at least not without turning up the wiper speed.

At this point, I'm wondering if there's something wrong with your vehicle? Have you done anything to the windshield?

Can you sit in your car on a dry day with it on and have someone spray the windshield with a hose? Wipers should start right up

 

[KenC]

I like the OP's suggestion. I would recommend practicing putting one's hand on the monitor and using the wiper controls without looking. You may find that you can quickly learn to do it. I wrap my fingers around the bottom of the monitor, and then reach up with my thumb. It's a bit like using one's smartphone. After a while, you get used to the distance to reach certain distances without looking.

The other technique I tried before, just practicing not looking, is to RainX the windshield all over, EXCEPT, the part over the sensor. Then the sensor gets exposed to the same droplets as before, but the rest of the windshield has much smaller droplets, so that when the wipers do wipe, it seems plenty often enough.