Tesla Robotaxi comes with a custom windscreen washer action

Tesla’s much-anticipated Robotaxi has finally begun to hit the streets of Austin, Texas. Early glimpses reveal some thoughtful and interesting features. Zack (@BLKMDL3), one of the Early Access Robotaxi riders, captured a unique windscreen wiping function that shows the level detail Tesla is considering when it comes to its autonomous vehicles.

It’s not your typical intermittent wipe. This is a targeted, specific cleaning action that ensures the car’s eyes are always clear. The wipers scrub the small area of the windscreen in front of Full Self-Driving’s (FSD) forward-facing camera.

The proactive cleaning is designed to remove dust and debris that may obstruct a camera’s view. This is crucial for the vehicle’s autonomy. This is a small but important detail, which highlights the shift of priority from the human occupants towards the car’s sensor hardware.

This new wiper routine performs several passes along the line of vision of the camera to ensure any grime has been removed. This is not the same as a normal windscreen wash cycle, which covers the entire screen for the driver. In an autonomous vehicle the camera’s perspective is crucial.

One downside is that the excess water appears to be visible by the passenger, who for now is a safety rider. However, this will not always be the case. This shows that Tesla can rewrite software that controls windscreen wiper motor mechanisms, something that other OEMs who use 3rd party solutions will not be able to do, at least easily.

The problem is also unique to Tesla due to their computer-vision approach for solving autonomy. This means that a clean windscreen is no longer a nice-to-have, but rather a necessity to maintain the performance of FSD.