The rear camera is always blocked in winter

Yeah rear camera placement is trash on HW3 as well. Tesla will never accomplish their FSD goals at the rate they are going.

Yes, it’s stupid. I’m sure people will start sabotaging self-driving fleet with stickers

i thought i was the only one.

Quick question since I don't drive a Tesla, but do drive another EV where the same happens. Can you still use automatic cruise control or does that stop to work?

Teslas are useless in snow and ice. They lose power quickly and they can hardly drive in it.

the rear camera of my cheap VW has a build in cleaning mechanism using the water to clean the windshield

It's fine when it's blocked by rain. The problem is when we go to reverse we can't see anything out of it. They do sell 3rd party covers, but I've yet to try it.

Yes, most cars this happens. Unless you have one with a camera washer. Which Tesla actually has on the front now. Mine gets dirty but seems to work fine most of the time.

Yup, and summer

Presumably, [when Musk pulls employees from the Austin robotaxis the week after next](https://electrek.co/2025/12/09/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-claims-driverless-robotaxis-coming-to-austin-in-3-weeks/), he'll just stash an Optimus robot in the trunk of each car instead, ready to jump out at red lights to give the cameras a clean.

"I honestly do not understand how they expect Level 4 autonomous driving to work." They don't. It's a scam.

You can't use FSD in Tesla either if the cameras are blocked . It won't turn on .

Rivian was smart enough to put a little cleaner spout on theirs.

>most cars this happens Most cars aren't paradigm altering Robotaxis.

A lot of automotive companies take winterizing seriously, e.g. there's a bunch of car and tyre test facilities in Ivalo up above the arctic circle in Finland. Tesla is OTOH not one of those companies. Snow gathers in bad spots on their cars, there's the notorious recall for panels falling off the CT after repeated freeze-thaw cycles, they consistently get the worst scores when it comes to corrosion resistance in climates with snow and road salt, and so on. It's disappointing but hardly surprising that a car company from California/Texas with a Silicon Valley ethos would ignore the hard-won lessons of the traditional manufacturers when it comes to winterizing.

Engineering is job none. Job one is stock pumping.

Tesla isn't in the business of making cars. The cars are window dressing to cover up the ponzi scam.

I really like that my 2015 Tesla has real backup sensors. Here in Canada my camera gets covered by snow, ice, dirt, and salt all the time during winter but I can still rely on the beeping when backing up.

A technological trunk monkey.

> Yes, most cars this happens. I've never had weather block the adaptive cruise in my car. I have had it temporarily "go out" in a car wash, but it auto resets when the wash is complete.

Yes and??

Well. In defense of that. Elon's natural enemy has always been the weather. DAMN YOU WEATHER~! /s

Apparently the Austin fix, is to have a human operator in a car behind the level 4 car. Would it still be camera only autonomy, if they have to have drones flying all over the city directing traffic from above?

They don’t plan to.  People keep buying the cars anyway.  Clever if you think about it as a business strategy

\^ THIS!! \^. As long as people keep oogling over them and buying them, nothing will change. Exaggerated promises will continue to be made and people will continue to buy into them. The rear camera has got to be the worst placement ever. Mine (2022 MYLR) is always dirty. Rain or shine, it's dirty and doesn't really help reversing and I swear those guidelines aren't straight. I always seem to be ever so slightly crooked in parking spaces when I back in. With no camera or anything on my 2010 Volvo, I can back straight into a spot just turning around and watching where I'm going.

I don't think sales are as good as before. Tesla is running ads now and offering 0% interest to get more sales. Also they are trying even harder to cut corners on their cars to increase profits.

Fewer people buy their cars than in 2023.

My Golf had the camera behind the VW logo on the hatch, only exposed when in reverse (obv not used for any sort of FSD). Any car with an exposed camera on the rear is going to have issues, Bernoulli effect throws crap back there. I always figured someone would come up with an air curtain-type solution to keep them clean.

Wow… I don’t have any issues with my Model Y; simply take a second or two to wipe the lens. The time taken to wine about this would likely give you plenty of opportunity to clean again your rear lens of your MY.

I swear to god I park better most of the time with my 2013 stick shift Mazda 3 than in most modern cars. Sure, a backup camera is nice, but so is actually being able to see shit in real life because your car isn’t 15 feet high and has actual windows

You can engage FSD with the rear camera completely blocked, it just can't do anything in reverse, it will only park nose in if it becomes blocked during transit. Presumably they will switch to the same self cleaning camera they use in the front bumper on the back on all models very soon, especially the robo taxis. On the Juniper the rear camera is also heated so snow melts off it immediately, dirt and salt still stick but it's a noticeable improvement from my 24 Y in how often it becomes blocked in transit or if I need to clear it if I'm parked outdoors.

If they ever remove the safety monitors I think there'll be graffiti.

Rear cameras will always have problems with dirt... Whenever I wash my car (every 10-14 days), I apply soft 99 mirror coat zero tot he rear camera (model Y LR AWD '23).. I never have dirt, water or anything on the camera, and vision is always perfect... If more than usual dirt gets thrown at it, the coating can be reapplied with a little cleaning and spray in 5 minutes..

If Elon decides to add the sensors needed for FSD, he'll have a lot of ticked off current owners of his garbage vehicles. So I don't expect he'll change a thing. "I believe we'll have FSD early next year" has been working since 2014.