How is Tesla going to solve autonomy with computer vision if they can’t even figure out how to make the windshield wipers work?
I believe it is possible to solve both self-driving and windshield wipers with computer vision, but Tesla would convince a lot more customers if the wipers worked properly
@WholeMarsBlog for me it’s the way FSD still drives in the middle of unmarked two way roads. It will barrel directly towards incoming traffic until the last moment This kind of error (hinted at in Elon’s stream) shows up very commonly for many people, extremely dangerous especially on curves
@WholeMarsBlog Yeah people want wipers fixed
@WholeMarsBlog Stop being an Earl. My auto wipers work perfect!! If not then it’s operator error:
@WholeMarsBlog Stop being an Earl. My auto wipers work perfect!! If not then it’s operator error:
@WholeMarsBlog With autonomy, windshield wipers are not needed.
@WholeMarsBlog The actual problem is that the cameras can't see 99% of the windshield. The 1% they see is completely out of focus, too. Add a camera that can see the whole windshield and it would work great!
@WholeMarsBlog it takes a surprising amount of deep learning apparently, lmao
@WholeMarsBlog it takes a surprising amount of deep learning apparently, lmao
@WholeMarsBlog Functional windshield wipers are an emergent property of one of the next FSD versions
Let me explain why Tesla auto wipers don't work: Tesla uses their camera suite to attempt to detect rain. The problem is that all Tesla cameras are fixed-focused to infinity, which means they can't directly detect raindrops, which sit a few mm from the lens. When you take a photo through a screen door or window, you will not see the screen because the light from the screen is out of focus and too diffuse for the sensor to detect. This is the same issue with water droplets sitting right in front of an Autopilot camera lens. The only reason it works at all is because some water droplet patterns over certain lighting conditions are discernable as vague distortions. Unfortunately, those same distortions are erroneously detected when the sky looks a certain way under certain lighting conditions. So how can Tesla fix this? Software alone is a very tall order and would require out of the box thinking like detecting the outside sounds of tires on wet roads, raindrops hitting the windshield, and possibly relying on the rear camera's likelihood to see water droplet distortions more strongly than the forward facing cameras. Or... Tesla could apply a micro lens on one of the forward facing cameras that would apply a near-field focus to a small portion of the camera sensor and apply the neutral net to that small sample area which basically gives the camera an integrated rain sensor. There is plenty of "dead" sensor area from the front facing cameras, especially the wider angle one, that could be used for looking close up (think bifocal lens) to see the rain without taking away from the portions of the image fed to AP for driving purposes.
@WholeMarsBlog Please continue to use your voice and plug with @elonmusk to amplify features like this that need to improve ASAP! I don’t know why the option to manually turn it off was removed but it needs to return! ❤️
@WholeMarsBlog Seems like it would be more reliable at this point to use “hyper local weather data” from gps location to determine if it’s raining 😂
@WholeMarsBlog I really enjoy seeing your doubt creep in now that you have a HW4 car... refreshing. You're asking good questions that might get some traction at Tesla.
@WholeMarsBlog Dude, come to a place with seasons. It’s seriously a problem. You have to go without FSD sometimes because the wipers are going absolutely bananas in clear (but cold) weather.
@WholeMarsBlog The misconception here is that they are trying to keep the windshield clear of water to you the drive can see. In reality they just need/want the cameras to see well. So it’s working pretty well from that perspective!
@WholeMarsBlog @RyanZohoury The windshield wiper is the signal. Once that’s working, you’ll know what autonomy is close. Lol.
@WholeMarsBlog Robotaxis are easy. Windshield wipers are hard.
@WholeMarsBlog Mine works very well now. I wish there was settings for it that allows you to change the aggressiveness of it.
@WholeMarsBlog Agreed and that's coming from someone in sunny California - think about us in grimy winter conditions UK that when there is a single drop of rain showing in street lighting the wipers go max crazy
@WholeMarsBlog Amazing technology, later than expected
@WholeMarsBlog Why not just prompt users for option to disable auto wipers for the remainder of trip, and also prompt when sensor needs cleaning so purpose of auto wiper at any given time is clear? Not hard.
@WholeMarsBlog LOL I know they will get there. After latest update dry weather issue was fixed but today it rained and guess what happened.
@WholeMarsBlog I haven't used wipers in 20 years. Rain-X
@WholeMarsBlog Thank you! 🙏 (even though you’re being facetious, you know millions of owners wonder this on a daily basis)