So, there's an issue with the repeater cameras that might end up throwing the whole replacement for S & X vehicles into chaos.
Many users have reported seeing glare in their repeater cameras when indicating. You could see this in dashcam footage previously, but the new repeater camera popup when indicating in V11 has really brought this front and centre. It's been discovered by Tesla Gurus why this is happening:
The PCB board designs for most HW2.5 / pre-late-2021 repeater cameras have holes that allow light to leak onto the image sensor from inside the repeater housing. This results in glare when indicating, blinding the camera. At some undetermined point, Tesla identified this and began applying tape over these holes in production to migrate the glare issue, before replacing the PCB design entirely very recently. If you can see glare, you don't have the tape-fix or the new design. I have attached images outlining this.
Going back to the post I quoted - it would be very insightful if
@Lowchrg could cover up your new side repeater cameras with something like tape and note if you can see glaring when indicating (while parked, obviously). If you can, it would indicate Tesla is using the older defective designs of the repeater cameras for the retrofit campaign for S & X vehicles.
What's the problem? You would still be upgrading to a 'modern' camera set by Tesla's standards, but with defective repeaters which blind themselves in darker conditions. The entire point of this retrofit is for FSD, Tesla would be shooting themselves in the foot by replacing older cameras with ones still not fit for the purpose of FSD. Having the camera blinded by its own indicator when turning (arguably one of the most basic and crucial manoeuvres for FSD not to mess up) is completely self-defeating.
Long story short, Tesla might be installing new cameras for this programme which will need to be replaced again if they are of the older design. It would be helpful to identify if this is the case.
I am involved in various discussions about this and some owners were being granted warranty replacements to the newer cameras. The problem is that Tesla seems to have issued an internal memo recently stopping owners, including myself, from also being granted a warranty replacement. They argue the glare is simply a "characteristic" of the camera and new cameras are "design enhanced", asking us to pay out of pocket for the new design. This is completely logically inconsistent given their effort to mitigate the poor PCB design with tape on this exact design.
I can't find any discussions about the glare design flaw discovery on this forum yet, so I may make a dedicated post.
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