Photo: u/No_Scale_740
Vehicles with Tesla’s heated windshield wiper defrost feature have started delivering from the automaker’s Fremont, California factory, and now there’s one way how to find out if you have the feature or not on your Model 3 or Model Y.
A new Tesla owner recently shared a photo of what appears to be the windshield wiper heater’s hardware, after taking delivery of a Model 3 Performance from Tesla’s Fremont factory on Monday (via Reddit).
The original poster also notes that they don’t yet have the correct software to make it work–version 2022.4.5–though it should eventually be updated to become operational.
For those that have the heated wiper defrost feature along with the correct software, a small wiper defrost icon appears on the climate UI, next to the heated steering wheel icon.
One user pointed out that those wires are on old Model 3 units too, though after the poster did some digging into old manuals, they noticed that the old design only included two wires, rather than the three depicted in the picture.
The initial rumor of a coming heated windshield wiper on Tesla’s vehicles was reported at the beginning of the year after the image of an icon from the vehicle’s UI was shared by the Tesla Owners of Massachusetts.
According to u/onemillimiles, they tested the temperature of Heated Wiper Park on their Model Y, and it showed up to 100F (37C) in some spots, with ambient car temperature at 55F (12.7C). They did not see visible defrost lines in the glass. Check out the photo below:
“To enable, tap the wiper defrost icon in the Climate control popup. Wiper defrost will automatically turn off after 30 minutes and will only activate when temperatures drop below 50F (10C) when enabled,” is how Tesla explains the new Windshield Wiper Defrost feature in its 2022.4.5 update.
Last month, Tesla’s Fremont factory lot was overflowing with vehicles, and it remained that way for at least a few weeks.
