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I have a Model 3. The autopilot was acting weird while driving on the freeway, sometime disengaging, but mostly not tracking the lane smoothly. For an unrelated
by jmpman 5y ago
I have a Model 3. The autopilot was acting weird while driving on the freeway, sometime disengaging, but mostly not tracking the lane smoothly. For an unrelated reason, I opted to view my camera footage, and was shocked to find that my camera was completely blurry. I’m driving down the freeway at 75mph, being guided by a camera that couldn’t pass a standard driver’s vision test.
Tesla came out to replace the camera, and it appeared that a film had been deposited on the windshield, obscuring the camera.
Living in Phoenix, my car is parked outside, facing south west. During Covid, I’d go many days at a time without driving, and in the summer, the interior temperatures can easily rise over 150f. Within the camera enclosure, there’s a reflection absorbing material, which likely creates a perfect miniature greenhouse.
I believe the glue in the camera housing melted/evaporated at these elevated temperatures and deposited on the windshield.
Concerned that others would experience this problem, I opened a case with the NHTSA. Crickets.
There could be many people driving around on autopilot, with obstructed vision, due to this same failure mode. It’s something Tesla could easily check, and something NHTSA should be investigating.
For something as safety critical as a forward facing camera, you’d expect both Tesla and NHTSA would be investigating. I have no indication that anything has happened as a result of my filing. Possibly because nobody else has reported the issue - maybe because nobody else is actively viewing their camera footage? There’s no other way for a Tesla owner to be aware of the issue. Frustrating.
- natch 5y agoThere are five forward facing cameras on a Model 3. Was it all five of them that were blurry? How could you tell? Or just the one selected as the frontmost one on the dash cam video?
- jmpman 5y agoJust the one that’s visible on the dashcam video, but the enclosure where all (I’m not aware of any other place) the forward facing cameras reside, the window was covered in a haze. Do you know of any way to view the other camera feeds? Are there any other forward facing cameras which aren’t behind the rear view mirror? https://imgur.com/a/KDkjbuF https://imgur.com/a/KDkjbuF https://imgur.com/a/vEbpzPo https://imgur.com/a/vEbpzPo
- coryrc 5y ago> was shocked to find that my camera was completely blurry They maybe don't need to figure out how it got blurry. But their testing regime is sad if it continues to work when it can't see!
- tyingq 5y agoThat's odd since Tesla seems proud of their AI expertise. Isn't something like "image is blurred" a fairly pedestrian (heh) exercise? Especially given that you would have related data, like what speed the car is going, if you're parked, etc.
- slg 5y agoThey do report if the camera can't get a good image. Glare from the sun is the most common reason. It is certainly possible that there is a window between when vision is degraded enough to be dangerous and when it alerts the driver, but a single occurrence isn't proof of a widescale problem. That is the type of thing that should be investigated in more depth, but it is hard to get anyone to care when it is only a theory that isn't even yet connected to a single accident.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bronzeage 5y agoIt's also a problem that the camera could have degraded vision that's inadequate for self driving yet report no problem at all and continue driving as if everything's fine. I'm pretty sure your situation isn't the only way the vision can be obstructed, maybe liquids, or even bird poop can also degrade vision.
- bscphil 5y agoThis is what I would expect as well. Some kind of visual self-test, and if/when it fails, the driver gets an obvious warning and autopilot does not engage - you get some kind of clearly visible warning so that you can contact Tesla to investigate / repair the obstruction.
- joshgachnang 5y agoThis does happen, but maybe not in all cases. I've had it happen where lane change is no longer supported (and you get a notification) because the sun is blinding one of the pillar cameras.
- raylad 5y agoThis does sound like something that should be the subject of a recall investigation.
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoI wonder if the US government is afraid to kill their golden goose like what happened with Boeing. EV is the future and China is moving fast.
- stfp 5y agoEV != Tesla and Tesla != Autopilot Also maybe hydrogen is the future?
- outworlder 5y ago> Also maybe hydrogen is the future It definitely isn't if we are going to move away from fossil fuels.
- nameisname 5y agoCan't renewables produce hydrogen?
- outworlder 5y agoThey can. But overwhelmingly, they do not. It's much cheaper to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels and that's not likely to change any time soon.
- gumby 5y agoYou can get H+ by cracking water. You “just” need a source of cheap energy. Storage is tough — those protons are really tiny and it’s hard to keep them from escaping
- outworlder 5y ago
- jader201 5y agoMeanwhile, TSLA is up 52% over the past 30 days, and 200% over the last year.
- bsagdiyev 5y agoDoes that magically make it safe? I don’t get the connection.
- gatlin 5y agoMy charitable read of the GP comment is that they are pointing out how ludicrous the stock increase is, but that's my reading. Side note, how much attention does your username usually garner you?
- gumby 5y agoI think the point is that Tesla investors and customers don’t care about safety, either for the passengers or as an externality.
- moffkalast 5y agoI think he's referring to the naive idea that stock prices in general are somehow influenced by what a company is doing and are not pure speculation.
- soheil 5y agoThere are several cameras for redundancy. The car also doesn't need crystal clear vision to drive. What may seem like a blurry image to human eye with simple filtering can become much more visible. It also doesn't need to see details, but rather needs to detect if there are any objects in the way or where the lane markings are.
- jmpman 5y agohttps://imgur.com/a/KDkjbuF https://imgur.com/a/KDkjbuF https://imgur.com/a/vEbpzPo https://imgur.com/a/vEbpzPo
- screye 5y agoTesla and Carelessness, name a better duo. From removing radar from their cars [1] to having their $200k super car be criminally underbraked. [2] Tesla has a low regard for human life, and exemplifies the worst of silicon valley's progress at any cost approach. Elon is undeniably intelligent, but his ethics are dangerously sidelined by his need to create products that might not be ready yet. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-drops-radar-is-autopilot-system-safe-2021-06-02/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn9QWjxFPKM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn9QWjxFPKM
- misiti3780 5y agoTesla doesnt make a $200K car.......
- Crosseye_Jack 5y agoThey may not be in production yet, but they are asking $200k for the Roadster (and $250k for the founders), which might be the super car I presume parent is talking about. The plaid while not $200k still clocks in at $150k
- filoleg 5y ago>They may not be in production yet, but they are asking $200k for the Roadster (and $250k for the founders), which might be the super car I presume parent is talking about Well, that's the problem. Claiming that the car that isn't even in production yet has "underbraking" issue is misleading at best. Regardless, I don't think that person was talking about the upcoming Roadster, because they added a link as a citation in "having their $200k super car be criminally underbraked. [2]", and [2] is a link to a video review of Model S Plaid by a big car youtube channel. I have no idea why they linked that specific video, because it was a glowing review of the car. The reviewers were giddy and threw tons of praise at it in pretty much every aspect.
- screye 5y ago
- 6t6t6t6 5y agoMy $300 OPPO phone alerts me when there's dust in front of the lens... Maybe maybe Tesla could benefit from some similar technology.
- dzhiurgis 5y agoFWIW Oppo sells more phones per month than Teslas lifetime total
- silisili 5y agoThat's horrifying. Every phone I've owned in the last 5 years or so notifies me when my camera is smudgy... it's not exactly cutting edge tech. Does this mean Tesla isn't doing this?
- _ea1k 5y agoTesla does do this. But there are likely some cases that are blurred enough to be a problem but not quite enough to trigger the detection. FWIW, I've seen a Youtube video of a non-Tesla with radar cruise have a similar issue. The radar was caked with snow and it was trying to run over the car in front of it. Does it not have detection for that scenario? Of course it does, but this one somehow managed to not trigger the radar blocked warning. These systems are not expected to be perfect at the moment.
- natch 5y agoThere are five forward facing cameras in a Model 3. So you're not being told the full picture here.
- jmpman 5y agohttps://imgur.com/a/KDkjbuF https://imgur.com/a/KDkjbuF https://imgur.com/a/vEbpzPo https://imgur.com/a/vEbpzPo See for yourself. All the forward facing cameras reside behind the rear view mirror. While the technician had removed the rear view mirror, I took a short video of the windshield blurring. Notice that through the haze it’s almost impossible to read the house numbers, about 9” tall, approximately 15’ away. And no, the car wasn’t shipped like this. I have plenty of footage from a year earlier, where the front facing cameras are crystal clear. Something happened in the last year.
- natch 5y agoThere are three cameras in the front center of the windscreen and two more forward facing cameras on the sides of the car. Again, for a total of five forward facing cameras. I see your picture of the on-screen rendering of an image from just one of these five cameras. And your second picture (video) which appears to show things that have been disassembled or partly uncovered… hard to draw any conclusions from that especially about the side forward facing cameras which are situated not where your picture shows, but just behind the front doors. Also can’t draw many conclusions about the windscreen cameras, not having been there myself to see what was done in the disassembly. And it’s a picture of the interior of the car, back side of the camera assembly? Not sure what it is supposed to be adding here.
- powerbroker 5y agoI've also filed a NHTSA report, some 12 months old now, that has been greeted with ... crickets. Something very basic, that any car maker should be able to do, is write a manual that teaches people how to use the (poorly written) software. The manual explains that you can do a 3-step invocation of a voice command: 1) push 'voice' button; 2) utter command; 3) push 'voice' button to complete. It hasn't worked that way since 2019. See, e.g. Software version: 2021.32 [1], p. 161 Good luck teaching people how to use 'Full Self Driving' with these kinds of error checks. [1] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_s_owners_manual_north_america_en_us.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_s_owners_man...
- rich_sasha 5y agoTesla is making a virtue out of cutting costs, using cheaper parts, and running a public beta. I guess one real test will be what the resale value of Teslas ends up being. Because they have been growing so fast, most Teslas are very new. What will they be like at 10? 15? Will they stay in shape, or will they drag the company valuation down? Also right now they have the cool car premium, but that’s bound to be shared once other catch up. Ford T was a similar bet I guess, attention to detail must have been lower with mass production, and it clearly paid off. Hard to know this time.
- the__alchemist 5y agoIt sounds like the fix here is a built-in-test for the camera capable of detecting this sort of obscuration / degraded acuity.