Why is America stuck with bad headlights? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#301

Post by Gravityloss » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:52 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #205

spanhandler wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm an enthusiast who has owned dozens of vehicles and driven around a hundred. I have only seen this feature on a couple of euro luxury cars.

Interesting! In Europe you not only have cockpit adjustable lights but auto leveling very common. Of course the consumer ends up paying for that, and they do cause maintenance issues.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#302

Post by gambiting » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

encom wrote: post #299

jrockway wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's great that it's relatively common to work on a complex piece of machinery that you use daily. You get the joys of understanding how a large system works and being able to tweak it according to your desires. It could easily go the other way, where every subsystem is DRM'd and only licensed professionals were allowed to touch it. Letting anyone do whatever they want can obviously lead to problems, like hea…

>every subsystem is DRM'd and only licensed professionals were allowed to touch it Kind of like how smartphones are right now.

BMW is doing it right now - some of their US cars will come with features locked behind a subscription model. Want heated seats? They are $99 a year, you get a free 14 day trial to see if you like the feature. Same with adaptive cruise, with more advanced media features etc etc. Their argument is that vast majority of new BMWs in US are leased, so it's "better" for customers to lease a basic model for less, and then pay extra for features you want.

The obvious question here is - if you make these features work without paying(assuming you paid for the car outright), is that illegal? After all, you own the heated seats - you just installed an extra switch to put them on.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#303

Post by xxs » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:04 AM UTC

TomMarius wrote: post #222

jdietrich wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the European Audi and BMW range is equipped with adaptive LED or laser headlights that selectively dip for oncoming traffic; self-levelling headlights are mandatory on new cars in the EU.

Not just "new cars" - a 2001 car that I drove had xeons with the leveling already mandatory. And it's checked at the bi-yearly technical inspection, and the police can forbid you to drive the car further if it's not working and they catch you (not sure if all around EU, definitely in Czechia and Germany).

Pretty much all the EU; although the 1st three years after new car purchase there is no technical inspection.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#304

Post by hbosch » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:05 AM UTC

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…

> The article never mentions, but how does the Porsche detect oncoming cars and overly reflective signs?

My Jeep Grand Cherokee does this, auto-dims the headlights when oncoming cars or reflective signs appear. I assume it's just the dumb way, if something "bright" is ahead of me then dim the lights. I don't think you have to do a lot of "image processing" to single out the direction a very bright light is pointing.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#305

Post by arethuza » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:07 AM UTC

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.

A bit like dual clutch transmissions - a few years back only to be found on exotics now I have one on my very modest 1l Škoda.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#306

Post by paganel » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:07 AM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #287

paganel wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups Unfortunately those fancy LED setups are a headache for the rest of us drivers sharing the roads with those models, because they're also bright as hell from the factory. Fortunately the tacky way Audi had implemented its rear-lights signalling wasn't adopted by the wider industry, and I think the VW group itself is having second thoughts about…

> Unfortunately those fancy LED setups are a headache for the rest of us drivers sharing the roads with those models, because they're also bright as hell from the factory. Really? I'd say about 10% of cars here are LEDs and an additional 25% are Xenons, and honestly it isn't particularly bothering. They don't blind you because the beam is pointed downwards. > Fortunately the tacky way Audi had implemented its rear-li…

> Not sure about that, they're rolling it our across VW models now,

My bad then. At least I think they made the newer implementations a little bit less obnoxious, I can only notice them on Audis that are a few years old (like 2013-2015, even newer), on the newer Seats or Skodas they are not such in "your face".

> They don't blind you because the beam is pointed downwards.

Maybe the drivers around these parts of the continent are doing it wrong, thing is that driving at night has become particularly challenging when there's even slight traffic coming from the other way. And I don't think I'm that old (I'm 39) or with a particular bad eye-sight. It also doesn't help that I drive a small 1.4l hatchback while the majority of newer cars seem to be higher CUVs/SUVs, in which case them "pointing their lights downwards" practically means them pointing the lights straight at me.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#307

Post by Havoc » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:08 AM UTC

mdoing wrote: post #298

bsimpson wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For instance: payments. Europe and Asia got chip cards and tap-to-pay decades before we did, even though Mastercard and Visa took part in their invention. America had credit card infrastructure first, so our payment networks were stuck with it, while other countries could start off with better stuff. Without the consumer demand that Google/Apple Pay (and later coronavirus) created, we still probably wouldn't have wid…

Banks in the US are very risk aversive when it comes to new technology about 6-7 years ago I was working with a team in the US and the next project that they were doing was implementing chip and pin for a single type of card for a bank. One person was trying to move to another team to avoid it. We had chip and pin in my country for years at this stage. I used just think that they were worried about the new technology…

>Banks in the US are very risk aversive when it comes to new technology

But are somehow fine with crappy magstripe easily cloned cards. Bit odd how they judge risk

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#308

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:19 AM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #250

Dylan16807 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a bigger punishment!

Taking away someone's transportation would be a bigger punishment than locking them inside a prison? Prisoners also can't drive cars around, so jail is a strict superset of that punishment. I'm not going to take a hard position on it, but I'm at least mildly skeptical that jail would ever be appropriate for something that can be just as easily solved by progressive fines and revoking a license. Jails in the US are re…

Jail is much more short term than prison. It can easily be a smaller punishment than having to buy a replacement car. Especially if it's something like this, where you might only spend a day or two there and have community service on top.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#309

Post by hans_castorp » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:22 AM UTC

Gravityloss wrote: post #301

kube-system wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an enthusiast who has owned dozens of vehicles and driven around a hundred. I have only seen this feature on a couple of euro luxury cars.

Interesting! In Europe you not only have cockpit adjustable lights but auto leveling very common. Of course the consumer ends up paying for that, and they do cause maintenance issues.

> In Europe you not only have cockpit adjustable lights but auto leveling very common

Cockpit adjustable lights have been required by law in Europe for about 20 years. When Xenon lamps arrived, auto-leveling was added as a requirement for them.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#310

Post by csomar » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 8:28 AM UTC

bsimpson wrote: post #253

gautamcgoel wrote: post #238

So, basically the same reason we have bad everything . Our institutions and regulations are outdated relative to the rest of the world, so we get stuck with shitty stuff.

For instance: payments. Europe and Asia got chip cards and tap-to-pay decades before we did, even though Mastercard and Visa took part in their invention. America had credit card infrastructure first, so our payment networks were stuck with it, while other countries could start off with better stuff. Without the consumer demand that Google/Apple Pay (and later coronavirus) created, we still probably wouldn't have wid…

This gets thrown a lot but I think the reason the U.S. didn't move from the swipe system to the PIN is the speed of processing your card. With the swipe, the cashier just swipe your card and you're done. With the chip, I have to wait and then enter my PIN and then wait. It's just a hustle.