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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

#91

Post by SkyPuncher »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #63
yareal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considerably more than five senses, actually. We rely on a huge variety of inputs beyond the basic ones when we drive.

Vision and hearing are the main senses we use to driving, and touch a distant third. Using taste, smell or proprioception means something is probably wrong with your vehicle.

Personally, proprioception ranks ahead of hearing for me.

Vision is first, but proprioception is how assess nearly everything else. Braking speed, acceleration, throttle input, cornering, traction, hydroplaning, tire pressure (even in specific tires), alignment issues (down to the specific wheel), balance issues, toe rod issues, transmission issues, engines issues, wind, payload, towing, etc, etc, etc.

I could probably tell you within 100lbs how much and roughly where payload is in the vehicle simply by feeling how the car is driving.

I literally cannot do racing game because I can’t sense the vehicle. Flip side, I used to think professional racers were crazy for being able to call in subtle issues to their crew chief. Turns out when you drive a specific car enough, you learn how it out to feel.

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

#92

Post by green-eclipse »

bigyikes wrote: post #38
ghostcluster wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels to me like another one of Elon's stubborn whims. Sometimes these result in great innovations, like Tesla's giant car part 'gigacasting'. Other times, they result in deciding to rename Twitter "X" and forcing a team of engineers to spend over a year combing meticulously through the codebase to remove all references to "twitter.com"

not doubting you but how does it take a year to remove twitter references? surely twitter has some internal code search tool like Sourcegraph which would let them easily search for all variations of “twitter”, right? /twi?t*e?r/gi

Code for a public facing website used by hundreds of millions of people is always more complicated than you think it is on the surface.

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

#93

Post by phinnaeus »

hanief wrote: post #11
pavel_lishin wrote: post #2

> This is a result of Tesla’s strategy to rely upon Tesla Vision to replace all sensors – which they’ve successfully used most recently to replace the ultrasonic parking sensors (USS) on their vehicles. Tesla believes that vision is the solution to achieving all self-driving capabilities, and this includes the elimination of extraneous sensors such as USS and radar. Why are they so hell-bent on using nothing but vide…

I think they falsely believe human only needs one sense to navigate: sight. But we actually use our hearing, smell, and touch too. So, multiple type sensors is actually better than only one.

Even if all the other senses were gone, the human eyes are hooked up to the human brain. Elon's references to cameras being eyes always glosses over the image processing part.

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

#94

Post by lm411 »

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 interfaces and design peaked long ago. True of many things in the modern world in my opinion.

I do under these modern designs are cheaper and that is generally the push for them.

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

#95

Post by [deleted] »

vel0city wrote: post #72
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…

So with auto wipers, sometimes you need to manually turn on the wipers. With manual wipers, you always need to manually turn on the wipers. I don't get how the auto wipers are worse. It's not like having auto wipers means you no longer have manual wipers. Other than maybe a Tesla where they took away the stalks, but just about every car I've had with auto wipers still had regular stalks with pretty regular wiper cont…

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by fortran77 »

binkHN wrote: post #40
hanief wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they falsely believe human only needs one sense to navigate: sight. But we actually use our hearing, smell, and touch too. So, multiple type sensors is actually better than only one.

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

Smell lets me know when it’s time to roll down the window.

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

#98

Post by dmitrygr »

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…

> I'd gladly pay $200 for an aftermarket part that lets me control my goddamn wipers.

A surprisingly low price for what will eventually cause your fatal accident due to inattention.

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

#99

Post by ineedaj0b »

_heimdall wrote: post #45
jayd16 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like it's cheap to repair frame damage in any car.

Frame damage is actually pretty straightforward on cars that actually have a frame (i.e. aren't unibody). The problem with repair costs in modern cars is all the sensors, cameras, complex paint jobs, airbags, etc. Those expenses add up quickly, combined with the added costs of body panels and trim for certain brands and costs really get insane - it shouldn't be a surprise that car insurance costs keep growing much fa…

it's still not easy. - many years growing up fixing up race cars and such. hardest part besides engine repair

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

#100

Post by makeitdouble »

ra7 wrote: post #53
pavel_lishin wrote: post #2

> This is a result of Tesla’s strategy to rely upon Tesla Vision to replace all sensors – which they’ve successfully used most recently to replace the ultrasonic parking sensors (USS) on their vehicles. Tesla believes that vision is the solution to achieving all self-driving capabilities, and this includes the elimination of extraneous sensors such as USS and radar. Why are they so hell-bent on using nothing but vide…

Combination of cost savings and “first principles” thinking. They tried to save $5 per car by not including a rain sensor. It’s a few million dollars in savings at their scale. At the same time, they spend time and resources engineering a “smart” solution to auto wipers using cameras. And they continue to spend effort on that because it still doesn’t work. Penny wise, pound foolish.

The weirdest part from the outside: reliably detecting it's raining should have obvious positive impact on the driving side as well. For instance to better interpret the tires slipping, or even anticipate worse precision from some of the sensors.
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