Automatic high beams?

The Tesla is missing a LOT of features that other cars have, so don't be surprised about this one in particular.

That said, there's a (new?) sensor on the back of the rearview mirror, which to me looks like the kind of sensor used for that exact purpose, so I'm not sure if the car actually has the feature (just not well documented), or if they plan to add it "soon", or if I'm just mistaking what that sensor is...

This is one feature I'm glad Tesla doesn't have. On every car I've had with auto dimming lights this feature has to be turned off since it either doesn't turn off when there are other cars coming or doesn't turn on when there aren't.

Agreed. One of the things I will miss going from Benz to Tesla. I imagine that I will get over it pretty quickly come delivery time.

jerry33 said:

This is one feature I'm glad Tesla doesn't have. On every car I've had with auto dimming lights this feature has to be turned off since it either doesn't turn off when there are other cars coming or doesn't turn on when there aren't.

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I'm with you Jerry I haven't ever used a vehicle that does auto-brights even close to right. They don't recognize cars far enough out. They don't always notice cars on the other side of a wide-median road. They rarely turn the brights back on when I need them. The last time I had a non-Model S loner I actually pulled over on the side of the road and spent 5 minutes trying, and eventually, turning off the auto high-beams. It was a nightmare.

jerry33 said:

This is one feature I'm glad Tesla doesn't have. On every car I've had with auto dimming lights this feature has to be turned off since it either doesn't turn off when there are other cars coming or doesn't turn on when there aren't.

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But IMO if this feature will be produced by Tesla it will work fine.

Raffy.Roma said:

But IMO if this feature will be produced by Tesla it will work fine.

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I doubt it will be able to see oncoming lights in the surrounding trees, on a twisty road, and dip the beams before the oncoming car actually has direct line of sight.

It will never be able to dip the beams when the driver notices an oncoming pedestrian. (Even if it could recognize the pedestrian, dipping the beams and the driver is not aware of the pedestrian is not really a good solution).

And wide medians, or partially obstructed medians, will always be a problem for the auto system.

Raffy.Roma said:

But IMO if this feature will be produced by Tesla it will work fine.

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I'd like to think so too, but to work fine it would have to be able to tell the difference between a car on the road and a farm or building light off to the side--even if it was directly ahead of the car because the road turns. This would require very accurate knowledge of where the road was and an ability to distinguish between a car light and other types of light--even if the car had one of its lights out or it was a motorcycle. You'd need at least two cameras for stereo vision, GPS accurate to within 2 metres, and quite a bit of AI processing power to pull it all together. I don't think we're there yet at any reasonable price point.

Cadillac tried this in 1963. One of the obvious drawbacks is that it won't go to low beams when approaching a car from behind. Tesla's new vehicle radar might be able to accomplish this, but probably not at great enough distances.

Since Tesla's new "autopilot" system includes the MobilEye camera and software, MobilEye already has the automatic high-beam feature built in. I assume all Tesla needs to do is to implement this feature in a future firmware upgrade to enable automatic high-beams.

My 2011 BMW 550i has the MobilEye automatic high beam feature. It works nearly perfectly. I was surprised at how good it is. The only issue I have with it is it tends to keep the low beams on longer than I would operating manually.

I would prefer if Tesla implements this the way Mercedes implements "Adaptive high beams." Basically the system does not turn of the high beams but rather electronically positions a "cover" to block the high beam just around the incoming car so the rest of the road is still perfectly lit up with the high beams. Much better implementation than turning off high beams altogether as you get to retain your vision and the incoming drier is not bothered.

green1 said:

The Tesla is missing a LOT of features that other cars have, so don't be surprised about this one in particular.

That said, there's a (new?) sensor on the back of the rearview mirror, which to me looks like the kind of sensor used for that exact purpose, so I'm not sure if the car actually has the feature (just not well documented), or if they plan to add it "soon", or if I'm just mistaking what that sensor is...

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andrewket said:

I thought that was the day/night/light sensor.

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Every Model S has the sensor on the back of the rear view mirror. It is the ambient light sensor. Used for switching the interface between day/night modes and automatic headlights.

The new camera above the rear view mirror probably can be used for this feature. However, I suspect Tesla is focusing on the features that drive safety first and not convenience features like this. There are tons of things they can do with the new sensor suite with software, I suspect the car will be getting upgrades for many years to come to add features that use these sensors.

I have a 65 Cadillac Sedan DeVille with this feature that my grandfather left me. I ended up having to disable it because of the reliability. One would think that by 2014 we would have perfected this!

My mobileye system has this and it works almost perfectly. It recognizes oncoming head lights, tail lights and street lighting. I live in a rural area with lots of deer and want my highs on the maximum time. This system accomplishes this far better than I could manually. I'd be amazed if tesla doesn't implement this feature.

I would never want to run with undipped headlights if I am following a car: it glares in the driver's rear view mirror from quite a way back and reflects straight on to his face. Any automatic feature would for me have to be very good at spotting cars in both directions.

simonog said:

I would never want to run with undipped headlights if I am following a car: it glares in the driver's rear view mirror from quite a way back and reflects straight on to his face. Any automatic feature would for me have to be very good at spotting cars in both directions.

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I agree. This is precisely what Mobileye does. When it detects tail lights ahead it dips the head lights. It does this at quite a good distance.