Update, August 19, 2026: This remains a published patent application, not a Tesla hardware-release note. Tesery later covered a different camera-hardware filing, the lens-cleaning system patent. Do not treat either filing as proof FSD no longer fails in low sun. Tesla’s own later FSD notes still talk about camera residue and visibility limits.
In mid-December 2025 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published Tesla’s application US 2025/0334856 A1, titled “Cone-textured glare shield for enhanced camera vision.” The document is on Google Patents. Tesla, Inc. is the assignee. The filing date on the application is April 25, 2024. Publication is not a product launch.
The problem the filing states is ordinary: bright sources — especially the sun — wash out a vehicle camera. Tesla’s stack is camera-first. Glare is a known failure mode for Autopilot / FSD (Supervised), the same class of issue human drivers solve with a visor. A patent describes one hardware idea. It does not say the current fleet has the part.
Key facts
- Number / title: US 2025/0334856 A1, “Cone-textured glare shield for enhanced camera vision.”
- What it claims: A glare shield whose surface is an array of micro-cones meant to cut reflection (the text discusses lowering total hemispherical reflectance), plus, in some embodiments, actuators that can tilt the shield as the light source moves.
- Who: Tesla, Inc.; inventors listed on the Google Patents page include Christos Gougoussis, Gabriel Isaac Geyne, and Saurabh Dhavane.
- What it is not: An OTA, an HW4/HW5 shipping SKU, or unsupervised FSD.
What the application actually describes
Instead of a flat hood over the camera, Tesla describes a cone-textured surface that scatters incoming light so less of it bounces into the lens. Some claims add a motorized tilt so the shield can track the sun or another glare source. That is electromechanical hardware, not a neural-net patch. Software can still try to recover a blown-out frame; this filing is about keeping photons from hitting the sensor in the first place.
A published application can be narrowed, abandoned, or never built. Tesla has other camera-housing ideas in the same family of problems — washer jets, heaters, the later lens-cleaning patent Tesery already noted. None of those, by themselves, retire the driver on FSD (Supervised). See Tesery’s v14.2.2 release-note story for what actually went into cars that same month (vision-encoder wording and Arrival Options), which is a different layer than a 2024 hardware filing.
FAQ
Is this on my car now?
Not because of this story. Check the physical camera hood on the vehicle. A 2025 publication of a 2024 application is not an install bulletin.
Does this “solve” FSD in sunrise/sunset?
No. It is one proposed mechanical approach. Tesla has not published a before/after disengagement study tied to this part.
Is a patent the same as a granted patent?
This identifier is an application (A1). Granted patents use a different kind of number. Read the Google Patents status line before calling it “Tesla patented X.”
For owners: if FSD drops or nags when the sun is in the camera, that is still your take-over. A glare-shield drawing does not change that duty.
Featured photo: HW4 front camera cluster on a Model 3 Highland (file photo of the housing, not the patented micro-cone shield). Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Related: Tesla lens-cleaning patent · FSD v14.2.2 in-car notes · FSD driver-monitoring change
