Autopilot, fully autonomous driving… Tesla has been offering futuristic and promising technologies for several years now. But behind this desire to develop new and unusual features, the manufacturer tends to forget the main thing… Like reliable windshield wipers. Explanations.
In the collective unconscious, Tesla generally rhymes with autonomous driving and other futuristic features. This is not surprising, as the manufacturer’s identity has revolved in recent years around this stated desire to be the spearhead of new automotive technologies.
However, by constantly wanting to innovate and not wanting to do anything like the others, Tesla tends to complicate functionalities which could nevertheless be very simple… This is particularly the case for windshield wipers.
Windshield wipers, the black spot of Teslas
“Honestly, it’s the worst thing about the car,” attacks a user on Reddit. This annoyed owner is far from being the only one, you just have to take a look at user forums and social networks to see how windshield wipers often come up again… In terms that are far from laudatory.
If you’ve never been in a Model 3 or another model in the manufacturer’s range, you’re probably wondering why the windshield wipers are so terrible. Tesla being Tesla, a brand obsessed with automation, the windshield wipers on its cars are automatic.
Of course, it is possible to manually opt for different profiles (intermittent-slow, intermittent-fast, etc.), but the manufacturer clearly encourages the user to rely on Auto mode. “VYour Model 3 detects rain. When water is detected on the windshield, your Model 3 detects the optimal wiper frequency. If your Model 3 does not detect water on the windshield, the wipers are not operating,” writes Tesla on its official website.
Also read: Tesla postpones release of V12 update, fully autonomous driving not yet ready
The automation problem
So that’s on paper. The reality is quite different. As many users on the web testify, it is not uncommon to see the windshield wipers doing as they pleasebeing active in bright sunshine or remaining still in pouring rain… “No Tesla has automatic windshield wipers. No, we have an automatic setting that activates the super-random-free-wheel mode of the wipers,” quips an irritated driver on X (Twitter).
But then, how can we explain this situation when sensor windshield wipers work perfectly for other manufacturers (and have done so for years)? The source of the problem comes from the method used by Tesla. Indeed, while the competition generally uses a dedicated sensor on its cars to detect droplets on the windshield, Tesla instead relies on a combination of integrated cameras and artificial intelligence: the famous Tesla Vision.
The Tesla Vision system could well be responsible
According to Chris Fox, principal engineer at engineering firm Munro & Associates, Tesla wiper failures could be caused by a calibration problem. For good reason, the Tesla Vision cameras have mainly been designed for autonomous driving, in particular for Autopilot and FSD. “It is entirely possible to detect rain. But also, depending on what they do with that camera, its field of view, it might not be able to pick up the raindrops,” he supposes.
Then comes the use of AI, which also poses a problem. Indeed, training artificial intelligence to effectively detect rain is a challenge in itself. However, according to Andrey Karpathy, former head of AI at the manufacturer, the AI model has already shown failures in its early stages by confusing certain unexpected elements with rain, such as tunnel entrances or dirt on the windshield.
Also read: Tesla updates 2 million cars to make its Autopilot more secure
Errors that have persisted for years
And unfortunately, these examples of false positives are still relevant today and are regularly mentioned by Tesla users. Proof of this is that the technology is not yet ready, Elon Musk himself admitted in May 2023 that the condition of the automatic windshield wipers was not satisfactory. He also declared that the neural network dedicated to this functionality would soon begin to operate several cameras instead of just one. But for now, this modification is still awaited.
“The reality is that, as much as Elon Musk likes to gloat about it, Tesla’s industrial vision systems aren’t actually very good. They will perceive things on the road that are not there. In this case, they are raindrops, but they could detect that there is something on the road and brake suddenly, even if there is nothing,” concludes Sam Abuelsamid, expert in electric and autonomous vehicles at Guidehouse Insight.
Source: InsideEVs