Photo: @greentheonly via Twitter
Automatic wipers and automatic lights are among the most popular features of modern vehicles. Nevertheless, Tesla owners complain that these features are broken on their cars. While Automatic High Beam has improved recently, the Autowipers continue to make Tesla owners angry in the rain.
Convenience features are popular with car buyers, who try to improve their experience behind the wheel with all sorts of automatic functions. Automatic headlights help illuminate the road without blinding other drivers, automatic wipers clean the windshield in the rain, and automatic climate control is a set-and-forget feature that takes care of thermal comfort without user intervention. Nevertheless, living with a broken air conditioning unit is possible, but non-functional wipers can affect safety and make driving more difficult in adverse weather.
Automatic wipers rely on an optical sensor to detect raindrops on the windshield. The more raindrops, the less light gets reflected by the windshield surface, and this info is used to adjust the wiper’s speed. The system usually works reliably, even in budget cars, so few people care about this feature. Except when it’s not working, of course. Surprisingly, the automatic wipers function is one of the sore spots of Tesla cars, which is unexpected considering all the technology crammed inside.
Many Tesla owners complained for a long time about the Autowipers not working as they should. They tend to dry-wipe the windshield when there is no raindrop and don’t work when it’s raining. This has been recently revealed by Tesla white hat hacker Green (@greentheonly), who drives a 2020 Tesla Model X Long Range+. Although his car has the option to adjust Autowipers sensitivity, this simply doesn’t work.
Tesla Model X also offers the option to continuously wipe the windshield. Nevertheless, Autosteer requires wipers to be set to Auto without the possibility of changing this setting. When it rains, it’s either wipers or Autopilot, which is kind of silly. Of course, the driver can trigger a single wipe by pushing the button at the end of the stalk. There’s another problem, though, because doing so will activate the wipers to their highest speed setting, which is also annoying. Many Tesla owners report not using the Autopilot when it’s raining because of that, which defeats the purpose.
This problem appears connected to the new set of sensors introduced with HW3 because it’s not affecting older models. As somebody pointed out, the rain sensor is positioned in the wrong spot at the top of the windshield, where the wind pushes the raindrops out of its way. This makes the lower part of the windshield to be all wet before the rain sensor even gets some raindrops. Nevertheless, Green explains that the Autowipers used to work well in the past with the same hardware setup, which points to a software problem. Hopefully, Tesla will fix it in a future software update.
Automatic wipers rely on an optical sensor to detect raindrops on the windshield. The more raindrops, the less light gets reflected by the windshield surface, and this info is used to adjust the wiper’s speed. The system usually works reliably, even in budget cars, so few people care about this feature. Except when it’s not working, of course. Surprisingly, the automatic wipers function is one of the sore spots of Tesla cars, which is unexpected considering all the technology crammed inside.
Many Tesla owners complained for a long time about the Autowipers not working as they should. They tend to dry-wipe the windshield when there is no raindrop and don’t work when it’s raining. This has been recently revealed by Tesla white hat hacker Green (@greentheonly), who drives a 2020 Tesla Model X Long Range+. Although his car has the option to adjust Autowipers sensitivity, this simply doesn’t work.
Tesla Model X also offers the option to continuously wipe the windshield. Nevertheless, Autosteer requires wipers to be set to Auto without the possibility of changing this setting. When it rains, it’s either wipers or Autopilot, which is kind of silly. Of course, the driver can trigger a single wipe by pushing the button at the end of the stalk. There’s another problem, though, because doing so will activate the wipers to their highest speed setting, which is also annoying. Many Tesla owners report not using the Autopilot when it’s raining because of that, which defeats the purpose.
This problem appears connected to the new set of sensors introduced with HW3 because it’s not affecting older models. As somebody pointed out, the rain sensor is positioned in the wrong spot at the top of the windshield, where the wind pushes the raindrops out of its way. This makes the lower part of the windshield to be all wet before the rain sensor even gets some raindrops. Nevertheless, Green explains that the Autowipers used to work well in the past with the same hardware setup, which points to a software problem. Hopefully, Tesla will fix it in a future software update.
had to drive in a bit of rain today
— green (@greentheonly) January 17, 2023
Tesla autowipers had no idea at all????
surprisingly it was dry-wiping 30 minutes prior before the rain started (no video though as I did not think at teh time it'd be relevant) pic.twitter.com/2xICzmts7b
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