Two Tesla ideas, which may not be bad in themselves, limit the usefulness of the autopilot system in Europe: The company’s electric cars come without a rain sensor and instead use artificial intelligence processed camera images to determine if and how much their windshield wipers should be. Activated is running. And since the Tesla autopilot needs a clear view of the sensors behind the windshield, AI scanning is automatically activated as soon as it’s triggered. In general, this may be an elegant solution, but in practice the consequences are rather unpleasant.
German nickname for the Tesla system
The problem seems to have only been around since Tesla started in the US last spring to delete the radar sensor that was always front-mounted. CEO Elon Musk explained that the way forward for Tesla’s autonomous driving lies in “seeing only,” that is, only in evaluating optical sensors. It is not certain whether radar information is no longer taken into account in vehicles that still have this sensor. But more recently, the Model 3 and the Model Y are also being delivered in Europe without them.
One consequence of this is that the pilot’s automatic steering can now only be used at speeds up to 140 km/h – before it was 150 km/h, but at least the Tesla speed limit for pure vision cars in Europe was replaced by in May. Software update from the previous maximum of 130 km / h again slightly increased. However, at the same time, the radar cancellation forced the activation of the automatic windshield wipers when on autopilot. And because it sometimes behaves privately, Tesla’s new system with cameras only earned a German moniker: scan-only.
Well, that’s a problem. Some bugs on windshields and wipers won’t stop when you just see the car. Can this be fixed Tweet embed?
A whole new meaning of wisdom only (wisch = german for scanning)
Video credit Tweet embed pic.twitter.com/RrxcKBcSVT
– Tesla Adri (@tesla_adri) June 16, 2022
This can be explained by the fact that the automatic system in the new Tesla car with a few remains of insects on the window did not want to stop scanning, despite the fact that the road and the car were clear of rain, as shown in the video. In the recordings on a German highway, disappointing driver comments can be heard on the one hand, and the constant squeaking of the wiper on the dry window on the other. Without “sight only” you can simply turn off the windshield wipers in this case, but in Teslas without radar you can’t use automatic steering either.
Autopilot radar can return
The scanner’s overzealous problem also appears to exist in the US, according to comments on the Twitter video. The German Tesla driver wrote in the current state, it’s not over even after cleaning the window. Then others suggested trying to restart the car computer. All in all, the enthusiasm for Autopilot in Europe now has clearly dimmed, because there has been no progress for a long time and the start of beta testing with the all-new FSD is a long time coming.
To solve the problem of extra wipers, Tesla can make rain detection more accurate or not activate it automatically and instead terminate autopilot guidance if visibility becomes too poor. But radar may also be back: At the beginning of June, it was announced that Tesla had applied for approval for a new high-resolution sensor in the United States in January.
