As the winter season enters its full swing at the start of the year-end holiday season, Tesla vehicles are affected in a different way than normal cars. Cold weather conditions block the Tesla Vision, and the automaker has found a solution.
Tesla vehicles depend on their neural-net-based Tesla Vision AI to drive themselves on Autopilot Full Self-Driving (FSD). Tesla Vision uses 8 external cameras of the vehicle to create a 360° view around the car to identify other vehicles, vulnerable road users (VRUs), road signs, and objects.
Normal cars driven by humans don’t have that many cameras. Tesla vehicle cameras are blocked due to snow and ice in extreme weather areas. Tesla mitigated this issue by upgrading its newer HW4/AI4-based cars with upgraded cameras. HW4 cars have been in production since January 2023, and the Cybertruck is also HW4.
Yesterday, a Tesla owner shared a picture of his Tesla car covered in snow, and there was a small round opening where the ice wasn’t present. The integrated heater with the camera of the HW4 Tesla vehicle melted snow off of its lens.
Following this post, another Tesla Model X owner shared a photo of his electric SUV that melted ice from the B-pillar camera (see above). This clears the camera’s vision and allows the vehicle to continue driving on Autopilot. A handy feature for regions where snowfall is a daily occurrence during winter.
The official Tesla AI account reposted the Tesla owner’s photo that showed melted ice off the camera. The reposted photo was paired with an interesting meme GIF showing a man coming out of a layer of snow and looking around his environment. The caption said “Tesla Vision rn [right now]”.
The heating, anti-glare, and anti-shining capabilities are available in the new Hardware 4 (HW4) cameras. The older vehicles (produced before January 2023) lack these features; thus, they can’t melt ice that blocks their view.
Tesla Model S,3, X, Y, and the Cybertruck also have a feature that melts ice and snow off their windshields, windows, and roofs remotely using the Tesla phone app. It uses the internal cabin heating to melt this ice on the vehicle.
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