Tesla Wants Your Car & Solar Panels To Have Lasers. Space Lasers Next?

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Tesla has patented laser beams that would clean a car’s glass. The patent application is for “Pulsed Laser Cleaning of Debris Accumulated on Glass Articles in Vehicles and Photovoltaic Assemblies.” In other words, these lasers will be for both Tesla vehicles and Tesla solar panels.

Yes, you’ve read that right. If this gets into production, Teslas are going to have lasers.

This reminds me of a tweet I saw from Elon Musk right before I came home to Louisiana. I was in Atlanta, riding the train late at night on my way home from a part-time job trying not to fall asleep and miss my stop. A tweet from Elon Musk about space lasers actually almost made me miss that stop. He was tweeting to the Game Of Thrones Twitter account.

So many Elon tweets that seem like pure jokes at first end up being based in reality, or predict reality.

That tweet provoked so many fun ideas, including one of my own: a cyborg kitten with laser eyes. However, I eventually forgot about those series of tweets, until I saw a headline about the patent from Car and Driver.

These lasers could remove the dirt, dust, and whatnot that would block the view of a camera, or from a solar panel. The illustration below shows the windshield and the bonnet portion of the Model S configured with the lasers that would clean its cameras.

laser

The Benefits of Lasers

The patent also includes a way for the cameras to detect dirt on the glass and camera lenses. The laser would then irradiate the dirt by burning it off. Having a car that would self-clean its windows and lenses would be very convenient for drivers. Here in the South, especially during the spring and summer bug seasons, these lasers could certainly come in handy.

Glass is something that will always be used in vehicles, as well as solar panels and other electronic devices (computers, phones, etc.). And in all cases, glass often gets dirty. Sometimes people leave greasy fingerprints, and when it comes to vehicles, especially parked Teslas that stand out due to their uniqueness, people just can’t resist touching what isn’t theirs. This has been proven numerous times with Sentry Mode’s many recordings of people keying and vandalizing the cars. Fingerprints are not the only issue that drivers have when it comes to glass. Dirt, dust, and debris from the roads often get everywhere almost immediately after a washing. And don’t forget pollen season!

Although Tesla’s lasers won’t be those awesome space lasers Elon was tweeting about, many drivers who see their cars as their personal spaceships will agree that having a car that cleans its glass and camera lenses with lasers is not only convenient but really cool as well.

Most importantly, if we have Teslas with lasers, we are definitely a few steps closer to cyborg dragons with lasers.


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Johnna Crider

Johnna owns less than one share of $TSLA currently and supports Tesla's mission. She also gardens, collects interesting minerals and can be found on TikTok

Johnna Crider has 1996 posts and counting. See all posts by Johnna Crider