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Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

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Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#141

Post by eurleif »

nsguy wrote: post #122
SoftTalker wrote: post #96

Wipers are a critical safety item. There should be a way to activate them manually, in fact I thought this was a legal requirement in the USA but perhaps I'm mistaken.

There is, by pressing a button on the left stalk. But that only wipes once and is also not intuitive when you first drive a Tesla.

When you press that button, a wiper control pops up on the screen, and allows you to keep the wipers on by pressing one of the four speed buttons. You can also use move the left thumb wheel on the steering wheel left and right to switch between those options while the pop-up is visible on the screen.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#142

Post by ec109685 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

TBH, I hate auto wipers and have always believed them to be a tech solution looking for a problem. Never once have I been in rainy weather and thought "gee, what should I do?". I currently have a car with auto wipers (I'm not sure but I think they use the "standard" infrared sensor to detect rain) and I find them worse than manual, intermittent wipers in every way. I think the biggest problem is that the wipers tend…

Accidentally left auto wipers on at the car wash.

Never enabled them again.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#143

Post by spookie »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #61
yareal wrote: post #13

Autowiper sensors are some of the simplest, well understood technology around. You place an infrared led at a low angle to the windshield, you place an ir collector so the light from the LED hits it. (Remember that at shallow angles, light reflects off glass.) When water is on the sensor, the angle of refraction and reflection change, and the ir collector suddenly sees much less light. Two components, plus a microcon…

They are not this simple; if so, an RLS (Rain / Light Sensor) assembly would cost 50 cents. To do a proper job, you need an array of IR emitters, and an array of detectors; and they need to be properly integrated into your windshield glass. The RLS is usually a part of the rearview mirror supporting structure. It also has to also work for hail and snow/sleet. Again, it's not as simple as you suggest.

Anything water based on top of the light emitter will have the same effect. You just need to use a formula describing its refractive index with temperature and density inputs. The temperature is known by the car, the density can use a look up table for various states the water could be in.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#144

Post by noSyncCloud »

creativeembassy wrote: post #60

This is my #1 complaint with our new Model Y. The "Auto" setting is completely worthless. It almost never turns on when it's raining. When it does turn on, it's either too fast or too slow. It'll turn on randomly when there's no rain. But it's not just the sensor, which would be inconvenient. The lack of control makes it *dangerous*. You have to push the button in _slightly_ on the left stalk, which makes the wipers…

Meanwhile 7? years ago I drove a company Volkswagen Touareg on a ca. 5 hour drive with constantly varying rain conditions the entire time and did not touch the wiper controls beyond initially setting them to Automatic. This is a solved problem.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#145

Post by csa »

lm411 wrote: post #94
tempestn wrote: post #48

There are other issues with Tesla's auto wipers. The main one is that, in other cars, you can have the wipers on auto, while still manually increasing or decreasing their speed. So if the wipers aren't going fast enough for you, you can bias the speed upward while maintaining the auto function, and vice-versa. On Teslas you don't have that option; you need to choose between auto and a fixed speed. (My guess is that t…

Using a touch screen to control wiper speed seems insane. In fact, most of what you wrote sounds incredibly unintuitive and frankly stupid. Things like wiper speed need to be brain-dead simple muscle memory controls - and similar in behaviour to other vehicles. I own three (cheap and old) vehicles, and I can easily switch between them and control the wipers even if I haven't driven one for 6+ months. Vehicle control…

> Using a touch screen to control wiper speed seems insane.

Honestly, I think that this is overblown.

Tap the end of the left stick and then use left scroll wheel to adjust.

Or use the voice command (e.g., “turn on wipers” or “increase wiper speed by 1”).

The “bad” part of the wipers is that some folks new to the car don’t know how to operate them if they have not read the manual.

Shitty drivers are going to do stupid things when it’s raining. No amount of UI is going to fix that. All the designers can do is minimize the degrees of freedom of stupidity. Tesla controls are somewhere between fine and quite optimized by this metric.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#146

Post by ohmyiv »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #66
binkHN wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine smell and touch are less valuable when driving a vehicle.

Touch is probably only needed to feel when you bump into something you didn't see, hopefully at low speed... but taste, yuck!

>Touch is probably only needed to feel when you bump into something you didn't see

I think you're underestimating the importance of touch, especially when it comes to steering and pedal control.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#147

Post by sundvor »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #69
creativeembassy wrote: post #60

This is my #1 complaint with our new Model Y. The "Auto" setting is completely worthless. It almost never turns on when it's raining. When it does turn on, it's either too fast or too slow. It'll turn on randomly when there's no rain. But it's not just the sensor, which would be inconvenient. The lack of control makes it *dangerous*. You have to push the button in _slightly_ on the left stalk, which makes the wipers…

> Tesla vehicles lack a rain sensor. Here’s how a proper rain sensor works https://youtu.be/TLm7Q92xMjQ?si=Yb-_TBYbPIuPXk_p

Great video. Tesla cars would just be so much better with these, it's kind of infuriating.

(Also the rear cross alert pings from my old (MT Sedan) Mazda 3 Astina '14 is something I miss greatly.)

Having said that, the wipers in my LR3'22 work pretty well and I am not really giving it that much thought.

I keep the area clean and wipe the blades down regularly. I do like how easy it is to engage the wiper service mode to be able to lift the blades; no manual required.

There was a time when perhaps I didn't keep the area that clean and found I couldn't really use cruise control on a highway drive without the wipers going nuts in the dry, fortunately it's been a while since I've experienced that - upgraded behaviour, perhaps.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#148

Post by ohmyiv »

shiroiushi wrote: post #79
jbotdev wrote: post #31

I get it, he’s trying to do everything in software (with the existing cameras), since software is “cheap” and can do anything in theory. Unfortunately they keep showing how they’re in over their head with some of these features (like FSD). But it’s fine because their customers agree to keep beta testing while they figure things out on production cars.

>But it’s fine because their customers agree to keep beta testing while they figure things out on production cars. This is the bottom line right here. It's the same with many other products too. It's not really wrong to run a business this way, because SO many customers apparently like it and continue to support these companies. Other examples are Microsoft and the ads it's baking into Windows, and Netflix and its pr…

> This is the bottom line right here. It's the same with many other products too.

This is how I feel about some released "MVPs". "I gotta show something even if it's crap. If it doesn't work, we'll fix it along the way."

Anytime someone mentions they're releasing an MVP, I make note of it to revisit later when they're done with alpha/beta testing. Incomplete release products kind of bug me and it seems to be more common, but I guess that may be a "me" thing. I'm glad my clients are tiny to small businesses and want things to work properly before they take over.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#149

Post by yareal »

lucianbr wrote: post #138
shiroiushi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The vehicle speed is determined by a single sensor, the Vehicle Speed Sensor. It measures the rpm of the driveshaft (or one of them), the shaft that is the output from the transmission. You don't need the gear ratio. But yes, it does assume that the tires are a certain size, so if you put the wrong size tires on, it will be wrong. Also, it's not super-accurate: tires sizes differ slightly by brand/model, plus the…

I wonder what you mean by "accumulates". If I change the tires, the slight difference due to the previous brand and the slight difference due to the new brand do not compound. I only get the last one. And if the older ones were worn, the new ones will have less error, as they are less worn. If the errors really accumulated, once in a while we would need to recalibrate the speed sensor, else we would be doing 90 and s…

Accumulate in this context means that there are several small errors, and it's a function of summing or multiplying those accumulated errors. It does not mean that they accrue over time.

Re: Tesla Auto Wipers: Why They Don't Work and Why There Isn't an Easy Fix

#150

Post by yareal »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #61
yareal wrote: post #13

Autowiper sensors are some of the simplest, well understood technology around. You place an infrared led at a low angle to the windshield, you place an ir collector so the light from the LED hits it. (Remember that at shallow angles, light reflects off glass.) When water is on the sensor, the angle of refraction and reflection change, and the ir collector suddenly sees much less light. Two components, plus a microcon…

They are not this simple; if so, an RLS (Rain / Light Sensor) assembly would cost 50 cents. To do a proper job, you need an array of IR emitters, and an array of detectors; and they need to be properly integrated into your windshield glass. The RLS is usually a part of the rearview mirror supporting structure. It also has to also work for hail and snow/sleet. Again, it's not as simple as you suggest.

Is that not what I described, more or less? None of the components are particularly complex or expensive except the part where they join with the glass in the structure. Trying to do it with video is a much, much harder problem.
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