This is a Tesla Model Y and
in this video I'm going to talk about the Matrix LED headlights on these cars and also on the Model 3's because finally Tesla has released
the software which makes the adaptive driving beam side of the headlights
actually work for the first time. So for some years now Tesla has
been fitting better headlights in the car than the software would actually allow. So these have just been operating
as normal LED headlights, but all Tesla Model Y's and
Model 3's from la
te 2020, I think about September 2020,
have had Matrix LED headlights. But the Matrix side of it has
never actually worked, until now. Well I say they've never worked. That's not
strictly true. So on these cars if you run the light show and it projects the word "Tesla"
up on a wall from both headlights at the front, that is using the Matrix side of the headlight,
adjusting those LEDs to spell the word "Tesla". So they've been able to do that for
a long time but they've never given the func
tion to adjust the beam
as you're driving in the dark. But that is until now and for me
now is the 30th of March 2024 as I record this because I got the new
over the air update this morning. But some people had it 3 weeks ago. But there was a bug in that, Tesla then pulled it and now they've started releasing
the second wave of it, as it were. So this morning I got 2024.8.7 and 2024.8
all at the same time. So two updates at once. So the latest updates was some
security improvements. So tha
t's the bug fixes that they needed to
do and the previous update which I didn't have until this morning
included the adaptive high beams. So that's what we're going
to look at in this video. So if we go to settings and then
lights, there's the new function and I can switch that on and that's switching
on adaptive high beams selectively dims individual pixels of the high beams
to reduce glare for other traffic. So let's just explain what this is because
a lot of people I've noticed on the
forums and the Facebook groups and things don't
understand what the adaptive high beams is. What it isn't is the automatic
dipping of the main beam. The Tesla's always done that
and does that from the camera. But that's something I've usually turned off
because the car doesn't react quick enough. You'll often find a car is coming around a corner in front and you can see it's beam
pattern and you know a car's coming. So you might want to dip it before, so you
don't blind them. But the car w
on't dip it until it actually sees some headlights
pointing at you. So it is a bit slow to react and what I found as well sometimes, it's
too slow to react so I then go to manually dip the lights and it then does it just before I
do that, but my hand's already in that sort of motion and then it's dip the lights and I've
then gone and put them back on main beam again. That happened a lot so I turned off that
automatic main beam or automatic dipping. So adaptive high beam isn't that at all. A
daptive high beam is effectively
driving with main beam on all the time. I've had it on other cars. The last car
I drove that had it on was the Mazda MX-30 and it takes a bit getting
used to because it feels selfish. So you've got normal dip beam
but when it's on high beam the pattern then changes so you remain on
high beam even when a car is coming toward you and it drops the section of
light so it doesn't dazzle other cars. So you as a driver feels like you're driving
everywhere on main
beam because actually you are, but other cars don't get blinded by your lights. It's very clever and it's something that a lot of vehicles have but it's usually a very
expensive upgrade. It's often part of a technology package in German cars which
might be costing you a grand or more. But on the Tesla, we've all just had this over
the update and you get it for free of charge. To be honest it's a function that
was never sold with Teslas. So when you bought a new Tesla they've never
said it
has Matrix LED headlights. So Tesla could have actually charged for
this. They could have said look you know it's £200 and then you get adaptive lights.
Most people would have paid that and think they've got what four million cars now
probably with these headlights fitted. But Tesla have given us all this new
upgrade, new functionality, free of charge. So what I'm going to do later it's go out
when it's dark because it's only half five at the moment and it's still light but I'm
going to se
e if I can get some footage of the adaptive headlights working and that beam
pattern adjusting as vehicles come towards me. So I'll come back to you later
on tonight when it's dark. So as you can tell it's now dark and at the moment this is normal dipped lights. If I put main beam on, we've now got main beam,
but they're also now working as adaptive lights. So a bit of a rough road this one. So here comes the car, I'm still on
main beam. The beam's dropped and yeah it's.... and just notice
there, it filled the road up. So yes, as that car came towards us, the beam
dropped, but only on the right hand side. Let's see whether it does cornering? I think it might do. I think it might be changing
the beam pattern as you go around a corner. I'll try again and then find another corner. But we got a car coming towards us. It's dipped
and then on the right hand side that should dip even more. But I didn't notice it there. But you
notice when the car went, the beam came back up. So as we
come up to a junction,
let's turn left here... it's not lighting that sign up particularly
bright ahead of us. So maybe we aren't on full main beam there. I thought at junctions it would
still light up full main beam (but clearly not). So did he flash or was that my
lights? I think that was my lights. But anyway, the beam pattern on
the right hand side of the road there dropped so it wasn't dazzling those cars and we're back on full main beam We've got a car here, so they both have dropped
. It's now gone
dark on the right hand side of the road. But the left hand side, the hedge row
there is all still lit up and it's the both have gone back up, there's a car
coming there and he's not flashing me. But to me as a driver, it feels
like I'm still on full main beam. So this system, I've experienced it
before, it feels selfish because it feels like you're driving on full main
beam everywhere. But no one flashes you. So you're getting a lot more light on the
road but crucially it'
s not in people's eyes. So it is very clever but it does feel
a bit weird because you feel like you want to dip your lights or you
should be dipping your lights. It reminds me actually of something I
was told at school. A teacher at school when I was about 13 at secondary school
and I've always remembered it every time I've got my lights on main beam
and a car comes the other way. It was an RE teacher which was a
religious education and he was talking about selfishness or something, kindne
ss
and he said even the worst mass murderer, no matter how bad a day he's had or
even if he's just murdered someone, when he gets in his car he will still dip his
beams, dip his headlights when he sees another car coming the other way and that's stuck
with me for what 43 years or something now and almost every time I
dip my beam I think of that and that's where this feels a little bit weird
because I'm not dipping my beam. Like now, to me it looks like the headlights are on full main
beam
, but it's not dazzling those two cars there. There we go, the right hand
side is just lit up again. Right, here comes a motorbike
yeah and you can see the light the road light up when that motorbike went past. I shouldn't really be on main beam
driving through a village at 30 mph. So it could be improved because it could be
dipping when you're going at slower speeds. But anyway, let's see what it's like here. So we're on the open road but
a car's coming. The bank on the right hand side is
certainly darker and
now that bank is lit up and you can see that road sign in front is lit up very
brightly because it's reflecting back. But of course we're now on full main beam
because there's nothing in front of us. Let's see what it does with these street lights
here. So coming to a roundabout which is lit. Is it going to dip the lights
because it can see street lights? I think it has because I'm not getting
a reflection off that sign there. Yeah, I think it has dips the beam. He's n
ot flashing me even
though certainly the left hand side of the road is lit up very brightly. So yeah, sometimes you
can't see the lights change. You can't see the pattern on the tarmac. So it's not obvious it's doing
things but it's clearly working. It's working very well. So we're coming to another lit area. Is it going to dip the lights? It has. Just dip there... I noticed that one. So did it dip the lights because we've got street lighting or was it those cars on
the other side of that ro
undabout? Yeah it's just dipped the lights again. So is that the reflections from the
road signs or was it the street lights? I'm not sure. But it was dipping just there. So we're now going back into a
narrow road.... so it's just gone up, main beam but there's a car
there I didn't see that dip. But it hasn't lit that car up, so it's working. We're going up a hill here. So there's
a car at the top of the hill which we're about to dazzle. So we're on
full beam here and he's just going to com
e around that corner...dipped. Look at
that...works perfectly. Quick enough as well. Oh I can see the matrix lights flashing there
on the road. So it's deciding whether to come back up full beam or not because we're
following these cars and it was changing the beam pattern really quickly and
almost dancing on the tarmac there. So we're going up a hill here and I feel my lights
are little bit bright behind these two cars. But a way of telling actually is whether you can
see the colour of th
e paint on that car in front. Whether my lights are lighting
up the car and they're not. I'm lighting up all the road and the bank,
but I'm not lighting up the car at all. So what I'm going to do now is
pull onto a dual carriageway. But we are behind these two
other cars which is a shame. Oh that just went up to main
beam there for some reason. But we're going to pull on this dual carriageway
and see how it performs when you've got two lanes of traffic on the other side of the road
and wh
ether it's going to be dazzling them. So at the moment they just
feel like normal dipped beam. But as I pull in here... Yeah the hedge on the left hand
side is certainly lit up more. They've just dipped because of that
car on the other side of the road. So we've got two lanes between us and them and
it's dipping for those cars, which is great. So the headlights went up again then
but then immediately dipped when that car came the other way and it's dipping for those. But the bank on the lef
t hand
side is certainly lit up a lot more than it would be with dipped headlights. So it is dipping for those cars on the
other side of the road and they're on the slow lane on the other side of the
road. So there are two lanes between us. So yes it's working very well. You don't
need to think about it. You just leave the headlights on and effectively it's going to drive
in full main beam all the time when it can. When it can't it will dip them, to a fashion. But
you're not touching that
stalk and adjusting the... you know, you're not constantly
dipping it and raising your headlights. Like now at the moment, we are on full
main beam. I'm going to pull off here. Let's see what it does as I
come down to the roundabout. So it's dipped. Is that because of the reflection of the off the road signs? I'm not
sure. But yeah, we're on dip lights. The other thing I should just
say, what you can't see is the main screen.The main screen has still
got the blue main beam light on all the
time but it's got a little 'A' in it
I assume that is. I can't quite see. So as the driver, you've got the blue main beam light on all the time and
it's just doing its thing. Oh, that's a nasty pothole there. So we got a bit of a flood here.
Let's just bypass that a little bit. So there's a particular rough bit of tarmac here. So those cars have gone by, the headlights
are gone up, another car's coming. I haven't seen the headlights dip. But
look at that. He's not flashing at me. Let's see
, we got a motorbike there. Right yeah, he didn't flash. His
headlights went a bit brighter because he was accelerating. I should think his front
tyre was off the ground there a little bit. I used to do the same thing when
I had a bike years and years ago. So yeah, I haven't once had to correct it. It's working very well. So like now, on full main beam
and there's nothing coming of course. Except we've got those bollards,
reflected bollards there, lit up brightly. Here's a car, immediately
dipped and
they're not flashing me. They're happy. But it's lit up all the left. The left hand
headlight was effectively still on main beam. But the right hand headlight was not blinding
those other cars and I'm getting more light on the road. I've got more light in front
of me even though cars are facing me. So that's the point of adaptive
headlights. It gives you the maximum amount of light as the driver,
but you're not blinding other people. So I'm just entering another village
here. H
ere comes a car. So the lights have dipped. Still lighting up that road
sign on the right hand side quite a lot. There was a lot of reflection back but the car
didn't flash me. So it wasn't blinding him. But you're definitely getting a lot more
light on the other side of the road. So here's an interesting one.... car's
turning out of that junction. It's now dipped. I was dazzling him a bit, but the camera
couldn't see that car. So it was a bit late there but it was an unusual one because I
was up
high and the junction was at the bottom of a dip. So we're going through this village, the
lights have gone back onto main beam. I wouldn't have put the lights on main
beam going through this village. There's no street lights in this village which
is a bit unusual. This village doesn't have any street lights in. I was
born and bought up in this village. But they've just dipped there. So they've
dipped because of the lights around that Pub. That's interesting. So as we pass that, the
re they go, the
left hand lights just come back up. So there's a pedestrian here running and they haven't dipped. So is it going to dip for this
petrol station? I couldn't tell. So yes, clearly the lights are dipping when
there are street lights or in that case, it could see the lights from the pub. So it's recognising it's a built-up
area and they were dipping. But we're back out the village here of
course and they're on full main beam, lighting up both sides of the road and the other thin
g you got to bear in mind,
what I found with the Model Y and I've seen a lot of people will say the same with the
Model 3 as well, is these LED headlights are set too high anyway and even on dipped
beam they were dazzling other drivers and I found that. I would get flashed
back from drivers because they thought I was on main beam... I don't
know, once every 30 40 cars or so. Not an awful lot but obviously the lights were
too bright for a lot of drivers and on this new adaptive system, the
lights are even brighter,
the dip lights are brighter because it's obviously lighting up some pixels to light up the hedgerows
and things on the left hand side of the road. So as a driver I'm seeing even more
light on the road when they're dipped. But cars aren't being dazzled.
They're not flashing me. So as a driver, it's brighter, safer
but we're not dazzling other drivers. So yes, it's achieved two things at once. So here's an interesting....
there we go, that's dipped. He's flashing me
. That's the first one. I wonder why he was flashing
me? That was again a gradient. Was that the issue, he was up higher? Interesting he even put his indicator on. Was he slowing down to stop there
because he was being dazzled? So I think that will do. It's
a very quiet night tonight, so I don't think I'm going to get any more
examples, so I'll wrap this video up here. If you found it useful,
please do click the thumbs up. It really does help. Do subscribe if you're not and
I'll see you on
the next video.
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