Hacker News Reader

Wiper blades fail.

One of the nice properties of the dual-blade setup is that if the one in front of the driver fails during a hard rain, it's possible to lean over and drive looking through the passenger-side of the front window -- at least until you can safely exit a freeway and find a safe place to stop.

Maybe less critical if the car is actually self-driving, so I guess I'm not surprised folks are thinking about this.

View on HN

More critical in the case of Tesla, where there are cameras mounted behind the windshield (on the rear-view mirror). This is one of the typical talking points in the LIDAR vs optical debate, because the rain makes it difficult to see with passive optical sensors.

The area in front of my rear view mirror is the only area on my windshield wiped by both wipers presumably because all the sensors are there and they wanted some sort of redundancy.

So it is occluded four times every wiper cycle.

There are three cameras there and they are spaced out so it is possible the occlusion is not as much as you imply.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com