Electric car manufacturer Tesla has recently filed a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a “pulsed laser cleaning system”, essentially laser beam windscreen wipers.

According to the patent, the laser beam windscreen wipers would be much more efficient than traditional cleaning methods. Tesla says that the cleaning system will be able to detect dirt on a surface and then zap it off.

Rather than use a traditional soap and water mix to wash a windshield, the new high-tech system will burn away debris and dirt using sophisticated laser beams instead. Tesla said it hopes to use the system on solar panels and roof tiles built by its subsidiary, SolarCity.

Traditional windscreen wipers, the patent said, were inefficient and unable to cover the whole surface of the windscreen. It claimed the current process resulted in “unproductive time” spent while waiting for the glass to dry.

The patent states that the laser system would be set up in such a way that they would not damage the occupants of the car’s eyes, and that it would not damage other components that might be damaged by a high-intensity beam of light.

A calibration would “limit penetration of the laser beam to a depth that is less than a thickness of the glass article”. Any glass surface on a car could be cleaned using the lasers, including the cameras and sensors used for autonomous driving.

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“The cleaning apparatus may be installed as a modular device in a vehicle and may be installed as a modular device in a vehicle and may provide a contactless means to clean different glass articles, for example windshields, in-vehicle camera lenses, side windows, rear-view mirrors, and the like,” the patent states.