Tesla’s automatic wipers have been atopic of discussion for years, but with the latest software update the company is taking a new approach to at least temporarily improve their performance.
The reason behind the poor performance of Tesla’s automatic wipers is that, like many other features of the car, they rely on the onboard cameras to decide when to activate. This is a different approach than all other automakers, which use rain sensors for their automatic wipers.
Tesla says it has taken steps to improve the performance of the automatic wipers, most notably by implementing a “Deep Rain” neural net that was supposed to train and improve their performance by learning from any manual interventions when in automatic mode.
Despite this feature first rolling out in 2019, the automatic wipers continue to be a source of frustration, turning on when it is a clear, sunny day, or not wiping fast enough when there is a torrential downpour.
However, in the recent spring update, 2024.14, Tesla is taking somewhat of a new approach to temporarily improve the automatic wipers.
Although not included in the release notes, the accompanying owner’s manual says that manually pressing the wiper button will now “temporarily increases the sensitivity of the wipers.” (via Not A Tesla App)
That is all the detail Tesla provides, but given the wording of increasing the sensitivity of the wipers, and not the “speed and intensity,” this means Tesla is temporarily changing how it sensing the amount of rain, which will hopefully lead to permanent improvements down the road.
We also don’t know how long this increased sensitivity lasts, but we are assuming it will revert to its normal state at the end of the drive, or when you put the car back in Park.
We have received the spring update on our Model Y, but unfortunately there has been no rain since it downloaded, and there is no rain in the foreseeable forecast, so it may be a while until we get to test out this new feature ourselves. If you have given it a try, let us know in the comments below if it was effective.
