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Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

caranddriver.com

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Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#181

Post by efficax »

CivBase wrote: post #174

> Each of the 911's lighting units includes 84 individually controlled LEDs that allow the car to continuously morph the pattern of its beams. When a car approaches in the oncoming lane, the 911's headlights dim around it while leaving the rest of the pattern bright. [...] Porsche would also dim the right side if road signs on the shoulder were overly reflective. The article never mentions, but how does the Porsche d…

my 2020 honda civic has lane detection and cruise control that keeps pace with the car in front of you... this isn't much different

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#182

Post by byw »

CivBase wrote: post #174

> Each of the 911's lighting units includes 84 individually controlled LEDs that allow the car to continuously morph the pattern of its beams. When a car approaches in the oncoming lane, the 911's headlights dim around it while leaving the rest of the pattern bright. [...] Porsche would also dim the right side if road signs on the shoulder were overly reflective. The article never mentions, but how does the Porsche d…

I'm guessing it's only available if you already have the package with distronic/lane-keep/autobrakes, which has the computing hardware.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#183

Post by kube-system »

heipei wrote: post #28

Even more importantly: Why is America still stuck with cars that honk when they're locked and that have indicator lights flashing in the same color as the tail-lights? One is a nuisance, the other one a straight-up safety issue.

> Why is America still stuck with cars that honk when they're locked

I've never encountered a car in the US that honks when they're locked the first time -- but many domestic models honk when you lock them twice in quick succession. Many people like the feature, for audible confirmation that the vehicle is locked, or finding your car in a parking lot. Abusing the feature is also a suburban dad pastime.

> have indicator lights flashing in the same color as the tail-lights

This one is a safety issue, and even US regulators own data shows that amber lights are safer. However, the US does have a minimum lamp size regulation that most other countries don't. I guess the original idea was to allow the combination of the two lights in exchange for a larger minimum lamp size.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#184

Post by duxup »

bArray wrote: post #145
partiallypro wrote: post #138

I get the criticism, want, and need...but comparing a $120K+ Porsche to a $20K average car isn't exactly a fair comparison, even when it comes to headlights. The replacement cost on that headlight is probably astronomical, where I can replace a bulb for $40. I don't even know if the Boxster which is around ~$60K comes with these headlights. A quick lookup and those Porsche headlights cost ~$2K EACH.

As with all automotive parts, eventually the price will come down. Currently they are luxury, in some years they will be commodity.

>eventually the price will come down

Not for Porsche owners. They sell at a premium, all the time.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#185

Post by corey_moncure »

mtVessel wrote: post #126
bob1029 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you on the assertion that this trend of illegal lighting is many times worse than obnoxiously loud exhaust. Life safety is certainly a bigger factor with the headlights, but all other aspects are orders of magnitude more disruptive on the acoustic side. Having bright-as-sun headlights driving around town at 3am is not going to cause a lot of trouble for most residents (as they would be indoors sleeping pe…

Let's see, what's worse? Being rudely awakened, or being maimed/killed by a driver who literally cannot see? I suppose in terms of net impact to society, there's no way of deciding without knowing in advance if the hypothetical victim is Mother Theresa or Hitler, so it's kind of a wash. But for me (and feel free to disagree), I'm going to err on the side of preventing a devastating impact to a small number, over a mi…

Being rudely awakened too many times in a night results in a driver who cannot drive safely the next morning.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#186

Post by daseiner1 »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #147
browningstreet wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm really old. Before Fast and Furious, I lived through the slammed mini truck / monster car stereo (speakers, speakers, speakers) craze of the late 80s. And before that there were many, many trends, like muscle cars, etc. It's always been like this...

The Fast and Furious franchise is, not unlike the late 2pac, a reflection of the community. A percentage of America has always been modding their cars and an even larger percentage enjoys dreaming about modding cars - the films draw from that, not the other way around.

How is Tupac relevant?

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#187

Post by jdietrich »

CivBase wrote: post #174

> Each of the 911's lighting units includes 84 individually controlled LEDs that allow the car to continuously morph the pattern of its beams. When a car approaches in the oncoming lane, the 911's headlights dim around it while leaving the rest of the pattern bright. [...] Porsche would also dim the right side if road signs on the shoulder were overly reflective. The article never mentions, but how does the Porsche d…

I also assume a system like that would probably be very expensive. Is this just a luxury feature or are matrix lights actually common in European cars?

It's relatively high-end, but it's rapidly trickling down - you'll find adaptive headlights on many mid-range models from Mazda, Ford and Volkswagen.

>I can certainly see why the US government might be cautious considering headlights are an important safety feature for a car.

I'm pretty sure it's just institutional inertia. Compared to a feature like adaptive cruise control or autonomous emergency braking, the risk of an adaptive headlight system failure is quite minimal.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#188

Post by jdietrich »

lvspiff wrote: post #53
serf wrote: post #14

groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups to America due to laws pertaining to high / low beams -- meanwhile every Jack and Jill on the road has glaringly illegal aftermarket Xenon bulb setups in refractor headlight housings rather than proper projectors, blinding the hell out of everyone on the road, and the police seem to do nothing about it. I mean, hey -- i'm usually happy about au…

The worst thing to happen to America was Autozone and Fast and Furious. Cheap aftermarket modifications to your car being sold to people with no knowledge of what they were doing but wanted it too look cool cause they saw it in the movie. Its led to years of teenagers with no training putting things on their cars that turn them into obnoxious spectacles on the road. I know I sound like an old coot but frankly I'm gla…

[flagged]

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#189

Post by narag »

efficax wrote: post #181
CivBase wrote: post #174

> Each of the 911's lighting units includes 84 individually controlled LEDs that allow the car to continuously morph the pattern of its beams. When a car approaches in the oncoming lane, the 911's headlights dim around it while leaving the rest of the pattern bright. [...] Porsche would also dim the right side if road signs on the shoulder were overly reflective. The article never mentions, but how does the Porsche d…

my 2020 honda civic has lane detection and cruise control that keeps pace with the car in front of you... this isn't much different

Last car I owned detected lanes and cars approaching from behind.

I had to disable the sound alerts. If someone had told me how many exceptions make the alerts bogus, I wouldn't have believed it. Not a single time the alerts responded to a real danger. On the contrary, I was alarmed for nothing, creating danger as I nervously looked around trying to understand what was wrong.

Sensor that switched lights on or off was nice though.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#190

Post by spanhandler »

kube-system wrote: post #166
chrisseaton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say there is almost certainly a little wheel somewhere on your dashboard to adjust them. My Land Rover has this.

A vehicle in the US that would be colloquially referred to as a 'truck' almost certainly does not . Headlight level controls are extremely rare in the US.

Been driving about 20 years in the US, owned eight or nine cars (mostly small to mid-sized sedans and minivans) over the years between me & the wife, and I can't recall ever seeing headlight level controls.
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