Prime high beams issue

Have you adjusted your lights or had the adjustment checked? They don't all leave the factory properly aimed.

I have found the lights on my 2018 to be excellent on both low and high. Low has good spread and coverage and high adds good range. Drive 4 hours across the Nevada desert at 70+ mph, with stretches including some slower hilly sections. Excellent visibility the whole way.

 

This is something many manufacturers have, but is not allowed by the US vehicle code. I don't them arriving here, if they can't be fully implemented, until they cost the same as a halogen unit.

 

You must live in a lighted area. Out in the country, high beams are on all the time unless there is oncoming traffic or cars ahead.

 

Maybe I'm old-school, but I much prefer to manually go to low beams whenever there's oncoming traffic, am suspicious of the efficacy of automated dimming systems. I rarely use high beams, driving mostly on well-lit streets/highways.

 

The Prime implementation of auto high beams is very primitive. I tried it for a few days, and it has been disabled ever since. The new adaptive headlights are much more sophisticated, but not yet approved for US use. In European cars, they work very well.

 

LED's are already more expensive than halogen, so cost isn't the barrier. Toyota was the manufacturer who petitioned NHTSA to allow the adaptive LED's, so they clearly intend to implement them when the regulators approve it.

 

Well, these arrays use more LEDs than in LED headlights currently available here, and then there is the cost of the sensors and software needed for them to track oncoming cars. Adapting them to just work like other auto-leveling headlights, as suggested, is another cost, assuming they could be used on the road here in such a manor.

So Toyota and others aren't going to bother bringing them to the US until they can be fully used as intended. Which I hope happens, because there are other sections of the vehicle code that need to be updated for today's technology.

 

I think “auto” high beams is just an excuse for auto makers to continue using the poorest quality headlights available to them. Raise the intensity, and adjust the focal point so they don’t blind oncoming vehicles, while still providing the light needed to see where you are going.

 

This is limited by regulation in the US. Eurpoean lights can have much more output.

This is why the cars have adjusters on the headlights. You can adjust this yourself. As you may have noted, most new headlights have a very sharp upper cutoff to avoid blinding oncoming drivers. If set too low, this results in limited range for the lights.

 

This is our 4th prius, and I think these headlights are better...
I've been pleased with both the light beam on the road, low and high, and so far i'm happy with the speed of dimming, it does take a second or 2 [well, likely less] to turn back on, but is pretty quick with the dim.
I live in a very rural, hilly, and where there lots of curves, high beams are on as i leave the city.
I'm disappointed to hear about the dimming below 21 mph, either the low beams are so good, or maybe i just didn't notice, after the last mailbox close to a mile away from home, i keep it well below 20.

 

How come pickups and big SUVs can have their headlights mounted so high up that I am blinded by oncoming vehicles that do NOT have their high beams on? Why are the headlights on ALL vehicles the same distance off the ground as is mandated for passenger cars?

 

An article on that very subject:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/810-947.pdf

 

Thanks for the link.
Seems pretty obvious that a light mounted at the level of one's eye would be more blinding than one mounted below that level when they have the same angle to the ground. Who knows, maybe the NHTSA will do something about it (though I'm not hopeful). At the same time maybe they can mandate that all bumpers must be at the same height so when a car gets hit by a truck or SUV, the car isn't destroyed simply because the other vehicle's bumper is far too high to contact the car's bumper.

 

I'd like for the authorities to take a look at the minimum separation between signal lights and head lights, Often, maybe more so in daylight, it's REALLY hard to discern if someone oncoming has their turn signal on or not. The signal light is "drowned out" by the bright headlight. And really, it needs to be case by case: automotive designers would need to submit designs for subjective testing.

 

Maybe as you age your visual "dynamic range" diminishes too?

 

Do you want your bumper a foot higher? Because that's how the rule would read...

 

Pretty much all the new ones do this, particularly the ones with the wrap-around LED DRLs.

 

I've noticed that the headlights of commercial trucks are mounted lower now.