# Auto High Beams



## TeslaFanDC

In a car as tech savvy as the Model 3, are there really not automatic dimming high beams that temporarily adjust for oncoming traffic? My 2016 Toyota Sienna has it and I was surprised in skimming the owner's manual today that I noticed no mention of it.

Seems like something they can easily enable with a software update though.


----------



## Michael Russo

TeslaFanDC said:


> In a car as tech savvy as the Model 3, are there really not automatic dimming high beams that temporarily adjust for oncoming traffic? My 2016 Toyota Sienna has it and I was surprised in skimming the owner's manual today that I noticed no mention of it.
> 
> Seems like something they can easily enable with a software update though.


Thought that's standard on Model 3...


----------



## Spiffywerks

I'm sure it will come in the future via software update.

My 1985 Thunderbird Elan had auto dimming headlights... haha.

I mean look at that digital super awesome 1985 dash!


----------



## TeslaFanDC

When in doubt, ask the boss. And surprisingly he answered me!


----------



## Spiffywerks

Whoa. Nice!


----------



## MelindaV

From the autopilot page's standard safety features:


----------



## TeslaFanDC

Oddly not mentioned anywhere in the January edition of the Owners Manual. So not rolled out yet I’m guessing.


----------



## scaots

I enabled auto high beams and have yet to see my lights switch to high beam. Granted being summer I'm not getting many chances where lights are in use, but have had a few times when they should have been able to kick on and didn't.



Spiffywerks said:


> I'm sure it will come in the future via software update.
> 
> My 1985 Thunderbird Elan had auto dimming headlights... haha.
> 
> I mean look at that digital super awesome 1985 dash!


I had a '85 elan. Loved that car. Still occasionally have dreams about it. Super comfortable, but the big six with three speed was pretty pathetic. Did you have the 6 or turbo 4 or V8? I had digital speedo, but I don't think the other guades and lights were like that, but I definitely didn't have all the options.


----------



## slacker775

The auto high beams have been working fine for me. It’s actually kinda weird, but it definitely lights up the street signs so you can actually see and read them.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

scaots said:


> I enabled auto high beams and have yet to see my lights switch to high beam. Granted being summer I'm not getting many chances where lights are in use, but have had a few times when they should have been able to kick on and didn't.
> 
> I had a '85 elan. Loved that car. Still occasionally have dreams about it. Super comfortable, but the big six with three speed was pretty pathetic. Did you have the 6 or turbo 4 or V8? I had digital speedo, but I don't think the other guades and lights were like that, but I definitely didn't have all the options.


I have yet to see them, but then the light pollution in South Florida is out of control. I never get anywhere dark enough to see them in action...


----------



## Bibs

I have seen them in action a few times now... they light up the road like a baseball stadium. Pretty neat.


----------



## iChris93

scaots said:


> I enabled auto high beams and have yet to see my lights switch to high beam. Granted being summer I'm not getting many chances where lights are in use, but have had a few times when they should have been able to kick on and didn't.
> 
> I had a '85 elan. Loved that car. Still occasionally have dreams about it. Super comfortable, but the big six with three speed was pretty pathetic. Did you have the 6 or turbo 4 or V8? I had digital speedo, but I don't think the other guades and lights were like that, but I definitely didn't have all the options.


Have you turned them on besides enabling them in settings? You have to push the stalk back to turn them on and you should see a greyed out auto high beam symbol on the screen.


----------



## PNWmisty

iChris93 said:


> Have you turned them on besides enabling them in settings? You have to push the stalk back to turn them on and you should see a greyed out auto high beam symbol on the screen.


I think that's true if you have enabled "Auto High Beams" but have "Auto" headlights "off". I leave headlights on "Auto" and have "Auto High Beams" enabled and leave my high beams on all the time and it works well. But it does need to be dark out for the daytime running lights to switch to headlights.


----------



## iChris93

PNWmisty said:


> I think that's true if you have enabled "Auto High Beams" but have "Auto" headlights "off". I leave headlights on "Auto" and have "Auto High Beams" enabled and leave my high beams on all the time and it works well. But it does need to be dark out for the daytime running lights to switch to headlights.


If I remember correctly, even with auto head lights on and auto high beams enabled, I had to turn on the brights to turn on the auto brights.


----------



## PNWmisty

iChris93 said:


> If I remember correctly, even with auto head lights on and auto high beams enabled, I had to turn on the brights to turn on the auto brights.


That may be right. Our days are still pretty long up North and I haven't had too many opportunities to use the headlights. But, yes, the stalk still works even with everything set to "auto".


----------



## iChris93

PNWmisty said:


> That may be right. Our days are still pretty long up North and I haven't had too many opportunities to use the headlights. But, yes, the stalk still works even with everything set to "auto".


I've only used it a couple times too, so I don't exactly know how it works but I can figure out how to turn it on every time I need it.

Here is the excerpt from the manual to make it clear.


----------



## PNWmisty

iChris93 said:


> I've only used it a couple times too, so I don't exactly know how it works but I can figure out how to turn it on every time I need it.


I'll try to remember to pay attention the next couple of times I drive in the dark to see if the high/low beam setting is retained from last time the car was driven. But I bet it always defaults to "low" beam each time the car is powered up.


----------



## slacker775

The auto high beam thing is not subtle. You should def know if it is on. The various signs will be bright as day and if there is some oncoming traffic, the high beams turn off and the signs go as black as they would have been back in the medieval times when you drove an old fashioned car.


----------



## iChris93

slacker775 said:


> The auto high beam thing is not subtle. You should def know if it is on. The various signs will be bright as day and if there is some oncoming traffic, the high beams turn off and the signs go as black as they would have been back in the medieval times when you drove an old fashioned car.


I still think they're better lit than they were with my previous vehicle.


----------



## PNWmisty

slacker775 said:


> The auto high beam thing is not subtle. You should def know if it is on. The various signs will be bright as day and if there is some oncoming traffic, the high beams turn off and the signs go as black as they would have been back in the medieval times when you drove an old fashioned car.


Oh, yes, it's easy to tell if it's on high beam, it's just that I need to pay attention to see if they stay on from last drive or if I have to flick them on each time. Fall is coming.


----------



## Thunder7ga

The lights on the car are very good....great visibility. The auto high beam setting itself has been a little manic for me.....we have lots of twists and turns and it seems to really go nutty throughout the ride so I disabled it for now. I'll wait for a update to it.


----------



## Gatornail

The auto high beams worked great for me until last night when they wouldn’t come on (I don’t drive a lot at night so it could have changed with the last software update). The option is chosen in the lights menu, but I had to use the stalk to get them to come on - and the road was really dark. I sent a bug report to Tesla.


----------



## littlD

I've never had an issue with this feature. I was actually amazed with how accurately the car determined when it could use them and when it shouldn't.

But I'm sure they can be improved like anything else.


----------



## PNWmisty

littlD said:


> I've never had an issue with this feature. I was actually amazed with how accurately the car determined when it could use them and when it shouldn't.
> 
> But I'm sure they can be improved like anything else.


IMO, the auto-high beams are functional and useful as-is but there is room for improvement. In particular:

On a dark and rainy night, on a two-lane highway, with only manual high beams, I turn them back to high beam the instant the on-coming car that I dimmed for is directly adjacent to me. The auto-high beams on the Model 3 wait about two-three seconds after this point to re-illuminate the road in the distance. That's too long. It works fine on a normal night in which you have some visibility past your low beams but not on a stormy night. I know why Tesla chose this behavior, because they didn't want the headlights to appear frantic or indecisive by flashing on/off needlessly. In the worst case scenario, a quick flash of the high beams could be interpreted by another driver as an aggressive move. But the systems ability to sense on-coming cars at quite a distance is impressive so the default behavior should be to turn on highbeams as soon as possible if it doesn't see more cars in the distance.

Another small improvement would be to not dim the high beams quite so soon when the oncoming car is far in the distance. I'm a considerate driver but in low visibility conditions, it works best if both drivers leave their high beams on until they are within about 2/10ths of a mile of each other.

Both of these improvements can be accomplished with relatively simple software upgrades.


----------



## mdfraz

This feature is my biggest (and perhaps my only real) complaint about my 3. 

The auto high beams are awful. Just in the past 4 days I've had the high beams come on just once, and it happened to be when a vehicle was coming at us in the opposite direction on divided 4 lane highway. Otherwise, they've never come on themselves, and we've driven some INCREDIBLY dark and deserted stretches of road just over the weekend which clearly should have allowed for high beams. I've complete given up on them working for now and have disabled the auto feature in favor of manual toggling.


----------



## sdbyrd79

My limited experience with auto high beams has been positive. They turn off immediately when another cars' lights appear & provide great visibility. Sometimes the reflection from certain road signs seem to emulate another cars' lights, but they turn right back on. It can certainly be improved, but it's worked really well for me so far.


----------



## iChris93

sdbyrd79 said:


> My limited experience with auto high beams has been positive. They turn off immediately when another cars' lights appear & provide great visibility. Sometimes the reflection from certain road signs seem to emulate another cars' lights, but they turn right back on. It can certainly be improved, but it's worked really well for me so far.


I drove with them last night for a couple hours. It seems like if you're coming around a bend, they won't turn off until you're running straight with the oncoming traffic. That may be okay, since the headlights aren't pointed toward the car until you're straight, but I'd usually turn them off sooner.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

As I scratched my head why I've never seen auto high beams before (I only completed step 1 below) I accidentally realized how they work tonight and wanted to share in case anyone was as lost as me.

Step 1:

Controls > Lights

Turn on "Auto High Beam"










Notice Auto High Beam is selected

In the circled area you do not add any indication of auto high beams though










Step 2:

Push the left stalk forward

Notice an inactive auto high beam indicator










When the conditions are right, the auto high beams will now come on.

To cancel, push the left stalk forward again. Note you do not need to return to the Controls area.


----------



## SR22pilot

Sometimes I have had the auto bright lights work well. Other times it is totally dark and they refuse to turn to bright. Any special secret? Do I have to set them manually the first time?


----------



## TrevP

There's no secret really. Just make sure you have it enabled under the light controls and push the left stalk forward. When you see the grey auto high beam symbol in your display it's ready and working. The vision system will automatically detect oncoming cars and turn them off and on for you. However there are times when false-positives make them turn off when they're not supposed to. It happens, even on other cars equipped with a similar system


----------



## dannyskim

For auto high beams, if you set the option to on and then turn on your high beams, technically the system will do it's best to adjust them in any given situation, meaning that it's set it once and done. 

I've found that it doesn't handle some situations the way I would, so I don't use it unless I'm on a long road trip and want the auto dimming to take one more thing off my plate.


----------



## SR22pilot

Thanks everyone. I have had it enabled. I guess it didn't hit me that I had to manually turn on brights the first time. I thought it would do it itself when it could including the first time.


----------



## babula

How do you manually turn them on? When I push the stalk forward, I can toggle them but unless I hold it there they will turn off.

Am I forgetting something completely obvious here? I seldom use them so maybe I missed something.


----------



## dannyskim

babula said:


> How do you manually turn them on? When I push the stalk forward, I can toggle them but unless I hold it there they will turn off.
> 
> Am I forgetting something completely obvious here? I seldom use them so maybe I missed something.


Sorry my previous directions were incorrect.

If you go into the Driving menu and turn off Auto High Beam, and then push the left stalk away from you, you will see that this toggles the High Beam. When you turn Auto High Beam back on, you'll see that it will adjust the Auto High Beam (toggle) for your environment.

I've seen it auto turn on my high beams in some situations, but it doesn't behave the way I would which is why I don't generally keep it on.


----------



## ADK46

I've had little experience with auto high beams, so my expectations are free-floating. I find them of marginal usefulness, depending on the situation. It's good for a country road with little to confuse the system. Elsewhere, there are too many things that trigger low beams. It's puzzling how the system can believe a big green highway sign high and on the right is an oncoming car. 

Also, the convention around here is that if you can see tail lights ahead, no matter the distance, you should dim your lights; the system waits too long. (We must be sensitive to those who do not have auto-dimming mirrors.)

Anyway, one way of thinking about them is as a backup to your own attentiveness. 

A feature is that if your lights are set to high but are currently dimmed, pulling the stalk flashes the high beams. We do need that feature to signal others to dim their brights, but at other times you must be careful not to send an inadvertent signal.


----------



## SyncUp

SR22pilot said:


> Sometimes I have had the auto bright lights work well. Other times it is totally dark and they refuse to turn to bright. Any special secret? Do I have to set them manually the first time?


I've noticed the same behavior. I'm wondering if perhaps Telsa reduced the sensitivity of the auto-bright in a recent software update because mine definitely were more sensitive (i.e., turning on more readily) a couple weeks ago.


----------



## mdfraz

Old firmware, new firmware, the auto headlights are useless on my car. They don't turn on high when they should (pitch black and no one around) and they didn't dim when cars were coming directly at me. I don't even bother with that setting.


----------



## sduck

The auto brights work pretty well for me. One thing I've noticed that's a bit vexing - if I'm sitting somewhere in the car for a bit, and turn the headlights off, when I turn them back on I have to re-enable the auto-brights by toggling the left lever again. Wish it would remember that I had them on.


----------



## MelindaV

sduck said:


> The auto brights work pretty well for me. One thing I've noticed that's a bit vexing - if I'm sitting somewhere in the car for a bit, and turn the headlights off, when I turn them back on I have to re-enable the auto-brights by toggling the left lever again. Wish it would remember that I had them on.


I've also found them to work quite well. but, if you flash your brights (like signaling a semi he is clear and can change lanes), you have to re-enable with the lever. it is nice that it shows (in grey) that the auto headlight function is active on the screen though.
my only issue with them, is if I am distantly following another car, it will keep the high beams on whereas I would turn them off as not to annoy that driver.


----------



## evannole

I have found that they won't turn on automatically until you are going at least 25 mph, which makes them decidedly less useful to me. My neighborhood has a very steep hill on a road without a sidewalk, and I like to take it pretty slowly in case there are pedestrians or animals over the crest. This is precisely the kind of situation where I find auto high beams helpful, yet they don't turn on until I am going faster than I would like, so I often trigger them manually along that stretch by pulling the stalk towards me and holding it. It's annoying but not terribly so, as it's only a run of a few hundred feet, with no curves.

I find that they work fairly well otherwise, but not as well as the ones on my wife's Volvo.


----------



## babula

evannole said:


> I have found that they won't turn on automatically until you are going at least 25 mph, which makes them decidedly less useful to me. My neighborhood has a very steep hill on a road without a sidewalk, and I like to take it pretty slowly in case there are pedestrians or animals over the crest. This is precisely the kind of situation where I find auto high beams helpful, yet they don't turn on until I am going faster than I would like, so I often trigger them manually along that stretch by pulling the stalk towards me and holding it. It's annoying but not terribly so, as it's only a run of a few hundred feet, with no curves.
> 
> I find that they work fairly well otherwise, but not as well as the ones on my wife's Volvo.


That's odd... Any idea why 25MPH is the magic number? I also mainly use them at slow speeds.


----------



## evannole

babula said:


> That's odd... Any idea why 25MPH is the magic number? I also mainly use them at slow speeds.


No idea. I do find that if I get up to 25 mph, they come on, and if I then drop back below 25, they remain on for a while. I haven't noticed at what speed, if any, they automatically shut off. I should probably submit a request to have them come on anytime that low-light conditions warrant them, regardless of speed.


----------



## atebit

Probably because unless the car is moving x speed it’s not able to properly detect an oncoming vehicle to auto-dim. My Tacoma does the same thing except I think the magic speed is like 35 MPH.


----------



## Jay79

I hope this system works better than the auto wiper function. Just enabled it at the end of my drive last night and pulled into my empty parking lot and nothing happened. I'm going out for a nice long drive after work today though, hopefully I have better results.


----------



## Dale Gardner

Jay79 said:


> I hope this system works better than the auto wiper function. Just enabled it at the end of my drive last night and pulled into my empty parking lot and nothing happened. I'm going out for a nice long drive after work today though, hopefully I have better results.


The auto wipers have worked very well for me. Not sure what you mean about the empty parking lot scenario, but I think the auto wipers either don't activate when the vehicle is in park, or there is a time delay. Originally, they would activate immediately, but owners complained because it would dump water/snow right on them or into the door. 

Usually, if there is some water sitting on the windshield, I will click the stalk button to give it one wipe and clear the windshield. Then if there is continued precipitation while I'm driving, the auto wipers will be taking care of that.


----------



## Jay79

Dale Gardner said:


> The auto wipers have worked very well for me. Not sure what you mean about the empty parking lot scenario, but I think the auto wipers either don't activate when the vehicle is in park, or there is a time delay. Originally, they would activate immediately, but owners complained because it would dump water/snow right on them or into the door.
> 
> Usually, if there is some water sitting on the windshield, I will click the stalk button to give it one wipe and clear the windshield. Then if there is continued precipitation while I'm driving, the auto wipers will be taking care of that.


I was talking about the auto bright function, I've got it working since my last post. It's got some room for improvement for sure as do the auto wiper function.


----------



## sdbyrd79

After having my 3 for several months, I've enjoyed the auto high beams on many trips. They work fairly well at detecting oncoming headlights to turn off. I should have caught this, but honestly forgot about it being on all this time and was cruising down the interstate at night when I got pulled over. The cop didn't know why I kept turning my high beams off & on and very politely told me to turn them off. Again, this is not the car's fault, as I should have realized it was flashing cars going down the interstate, but wanted to share the experience. He also wanted to know why I have a "dad gum iPad" in my car 

Maybe a future update will suppress the auto high beam function when it knows its on an interstate...


----------



## MountainPass

Glad he was understanding! What is a dad gum?


----------



## SR22pilot

MountainPass said:


> Glad he was understanding! What is a dad gum?


You clearly didn't grow up in the southern US.  Otherwise you would know dadgummit.


----------



## MelindaV

sdbyrd79 said:


> After having my 3 for several months, I've enjoyed the auto high beams on many trips. They work fairly well at detecting oncoming headlights to turn off. I should have caught this, but honestly forgot about it being on all this time and was cruising down the interstate at night when I got pulled over. The cop didn't know why I kept turning my high beams off & on and very politely told me to turn them off. Again, this is not the car's fault, as I should have realized it was flashing cars going down the interstate, but wanted to share the experience. He also wanted to know why I have a "dad gum iPad" in my car
> 
> Maybe a future update will suppress the auto high beam function when it knows its on an interstate...


I just had a coworker return from a trip from Charlotte to Atlanta and when asking how his trip was, his very first comment was "they have zero lights on their freeways!". then on and on about how dark the highways are there.

I think I have too much traffic around for my high beams to come on more than once or twice on a nighttime drive on the freeway here, but have had a couple times when they were coming off/on more than needed and manually turned them off. good reminder for all to watch them though


----------



## GateFather

I realized pretty quickly when was and when wasn't the right time to use the autohigh beams. I've come to the realization that they are basically necessary only when you would be using high beams in a car without auto high beams- DUH. I was driving around the first week thinking it was OK to have the auto-high beams on all the time since they turn themselves off when traffic is around. I didn't get pulled over but realized one day how annoying I was probably being to other drivers (dare I say dangerous?). Anyways, the best use I've found for them so far is late at night on some back country roads. Took my son to Chuck E' Cheese a couple weeks back and from my town (Hammonton, NJ) to the town where the Chuck E' Cheese is there's a back way that takes you about 10miles with blueberry farms on one side and the pine bearings on the other - no street lights, lots of bends. EAP was great with auto-high beams on. I was hyper alert for deer, but having the car drive itself while turning headlights on and off for oncoming cars (even when they were 1/2 mile away) was great!

Here is part of the route!










Imagine this at night!


----------



## Wooloomooloo

Informative, thank you. I think a reasonable solution would be to have auto dip, but not auto high-beam, at least as an option.


----------



## mswlogo

sdbyrd79 said:


> After having my 3 for several months, I've enjoyed the auto high beams on many trips. They work fairly well at detecting oncoming headlights to turn off. I should have caught this, but honestly forgot about it being on all this time and was cruising down the interstate at night when I got pulled over. The cop didn't know why I kept turning my high beams off & on and very politely told me to turn them off. *Again, this is not the car's fault*, as I should have realized it was flashing cars going down the interstate, but wanted to share the experience. He also wanted to know why I have a "dad gum iPad" in my car
> 
> Maybe a future update will suppress the auto high beam function when it knows its on an interstate...


No, *it is* the cars fault. They run like crap. Buddy of mine got pulled over last night too. I have Auto High beams on my Jeep for the last 3 years. They are nearly perfect, I *never have to shut them off*. If the jeep sees rear tail lights way up the road it will keep them off. It's more attentive than I ever was. I agree, the Model 3 does do fairly good off the highway. But on the highway they are a joke.

There is nothing wrong with running them on interstate when no one is ahead of you or oncoming. My "dumb" Jeep figures it out, I just set it and forget it. Never have to worry about and gives me the best visibility in all circumstances.
I sure hope they would never disable it on interstate. I want to see if there is a deer or something up ahead.

Actually there is one time I do shut them off, in fog or heavy snow, they reflect back to much.


----------



## jsmay311

If they’re gonna be on by default (which they were on my car), they should work well enough not to get you pulled over in 99.9% of situations. Period. 

I turned mine off almost right away since they resulted in the high beams frequently turning on while driving around my residential neighborhood at night and blinding people out on evening walks. Seems to me a highway/interstate is the only place I’d ever want to use them — assuming they worked well, which it sounds like they don’t.


----------



## mswlogo

jsmay311 said:


> If they're gonna be on by default (which they were on my car), they should work well enough not to get you pulled over in 99.9% of situations. Period.
> 
> I turned mine off almost right away since they resulted in the high beams frequently turning on while driving around my residential neighborhood at night and blinding people out on evening walks. Seems to me a highway/interstate is the only place I'd ever want to use them - assuming they worked well, which it sounds like they don't.


My jeep even knows to often keep them off in residential neighborhoods, I think it senses that it's highly reflective in close quarters (like bouncing off a house). It does not do this perfectly, probably 80% off in neighborhoods. Very few issues keeping it on. I might be annoying a few people now and then in corner cases. But it's more attentive about using them appropriately than I ever was manually. It always blew me away how good it was and I expected nothing less on a Tesla costing twice as much and lots of brain power. There was a Video on Neural Nets talking about Rain Sensing wipers. I think they made an easy problem hard by lumping Autohigh beam and Rain Sensing into the Neural Net logic. Rain sensing is as bad as Auto High Beam. Oh and Rain Sensing works fine on the jeep to, not perfect, but way better than Model 3.


----------



## Enginerd

jsmay311 said:


> If they're gonna be on by default (which they were on my car), they should work well enough


Reminder that toggling from low beams to auto high beams or visa versa is as simple as pushing forward on the left stalk. Use them when you want. Don't when you don't.


----------



## ADK46

They really cannot be used on the interstate I drive on. They don't dim when cars are approaching in the distance, or across a wide median. They don't dim for cars ahead, until much closer than common practice. I can see the difficulty in designing a system to react properly in these situations; I will patiently await improvements.

But they _will_ dim for a gigantic green highway directional sign, high and on the right. That tells me the system is stupid. The interns who designed it should not be rehired next summer. Their manager should be reassigned to responsibilities where stupid is OK.

On my rural, deer-infested two lane roads, the system is useful, but I do worry about getting pulled over on suspicion of DWI.

Is this another system labeled "beta"? Well, then, consider this "beta criticism", whatever that might mean.


----------



## Ed Post

Agreed. I just finished a 7300 mile road trip, and found the auto-dim function close to useless. I saw it dim for road signs several times, which is annoying because when it dims, the reflective road signs are no longer illuminated so they go dim too, and the car thinks "where did those headlights go?" and turns the brights back on. Rinse. Repeat.


----------



## MelindaV

Ed Post said:


> Agreed. I just finished a 7300 mile road trip, and found the auto-dim function close to useless. I saw it dim for road signs several times, which is annoying because when it dims, the reflective road signs are no longer illuminated so they go dim too, and the car thinks "where did those headlights go?" and turns the brights back on. Rinse. Repeat.


This may be a regional issue with the types of signs, their heights or angle. I've not had this happen when the auto highbeams are on here at all.


----------



## littlD

Like most "Auto" things, we have an anticipation that it'll behave more like we would if we're still doing it manually.

Maybe in the future, we can tune these "auto" features so they work more like we like them.


----------



## KarenRei

sdbyrd79 said:


> He also wanted to know why I have a "dad gum iPad" in my car


Reminds me of this:






Should have used it as an opportunity to offer him a test drive.


----------



## mswlogo

littlD said:


> Like most "Auto" things, we have an anticipation that it'll behave more like we would if we're still doing it manually.
> 
> Maybe in the future, we can tune these "auto" features so they work more like we like them.


No, it's just really broken and I own other cars that do a reasonable job. Auto HighBeam and Auto Wipers are basically alpha quality. I assume they will eventually both get fixed.
Not expecting miracles. I think folks that think it's acceptable don't have experience with systems that actually do work fairly well.


----------



## MelindaV

mswlogo said:


> No, it's just really broken and I own other cars that do a reasonable job. Auto HighBeam and Auto Wipers are basically alpha quality. I assume they will eventually both get fixed.
> Not expecting miracles. I think folks that think it's acceptable don't have experience with systems that actually do work fairly well.


maybe check with service if there is something out of adjustment. both auto wipers and auto highbeams work exactly as I would expect them to on my car.


----------



## Jay Jay

Wow, that guy missed a great opportunity! I would have told that cop to get in and check it all out. Go for a spin. You're a bad Teslavangelist bro!


----------



## Bigriver

Interesting thread. I have felt that the auto high beam is sluggish but had not considered the possibility that it could result in a traffic stop. It is notably more sluggish than the Model X and my Volvo, both which astound me with their instant response. I predict a software update in the future that will adjust the Model 3 response.


----------



## Kizzy

sdbyrd79 said:


> Maybe a future update will suppress the auto high beam function when it knows its on an interstate...





jsmay311 said:


> If they're gonna be on by default (which they were on my car), they should work well enough not to get you pulled over in 99.9% of situations. Period.
> 
> I turned mine off almost right away since they resulted in the high beams frequently turning on while driving around my residential neighborhood at night and blinding people out on evening walks. Seems to me a highway/interstate is the only place I'd ever want to use them - assuming they worked well, which it sounds like they don't.


My auto highbeams seem to be disabled when I turn into my neighborhood. Whether that's geofencing or the steep angle of the road, I don't know. But there are very few reflective signs (only for the names of streets).


----------



## Love

The bright on auto don't turn off soon enough to my liking when oncoming traffic is visible to me. Just a personal preference I suppose, but I like to turn the lights down (brights off) well before the auto feature does it, which seems to be when I'm almost on top of the oncoming traffic. If I were to relate it to manually turning them on and off, I would say it turns them off right in the area of "oh, I forgot I had those on... sorry dude."


----------



## GateFather

Lovesword said:


> The bright on auto don't turn off soon enough to my liking when oncoming traffic is visible to me. Just a personal preference I suppose, but I like to turn the lights down (brights off) well before the auto feature does it, which seems to be when I'm almost on top of the oncoming traffic. If I were to relate it to manually turning them on and off, I would say it turns them off right in the area of "oh, I forgot I had those on... sorry dude."


Strange mine does turn off for oncoming traffic the moment their headlights become visible. Someone driving in front of me, not so much. In fact I've been driving many times where it simply ignores the tail lights and blinds the poor people.


----------



## ADK46

I think the brights turn off and stay off below a certain speed. I noticed this the other night when I pulled into my (long) driveway. Perhaps someday they'll detect street lights, and stay dimmed. 

In some atmospheric conditions, you can tell someone is coming before their headlights appear. You can see them dim their lights, and you should as well to be polite. I doubt there will ever be a system that can do this. Sometimes you can see someone coming from the illumination of guard rails - ditto. 

The future of headlights is the matrix sort - an array of LEDs controlled by a vision system that illuminates only what you need to see, and avoids shining at other cars. Already available on some high-end cars.


----------



## Rick Steinwand

I think high beams work ok, but could be a LOT better. 

If after driving on high beam, if it decides to go to low beam, they should stay off longer, then re-evaluate before deciding to switch back to high. It should stay on low for like 20 seconds.

It's the high, then low, then high that makes me turn them off. I don't want anyone thinking I'm flashing my lights at them.


----------



## ADK46

When I operate high beams manually, I turn them on the instant I pass an oncoming car. That's a point where my eyes are still a bit blinded and I'm plunging into the darkness. I use high beams mainly to spot deer, and that's when the damn things will be jumping out at me.

On the other hand, I can see that an automated system shouldn't do that if it can't do it perfectly. The current ~1 second delay (at 60 mph, that's about 100 feet) may be the right compromise.

I don't trust unscientific observations, but my sense is that the auto-dim system has gotten better since I got my car 3 months ago - fewer false positives.


----------



## Fredbob711

I've mostly had my auto high beams turned off this winter because I haven't been happy with how they've performed around my house. To get to a main road from my house, the side street ends at a T intersection. On a regular basis I'll be pulling up to that intersection (which has a stoplight) and the high beams will stay on; I'd really rather not continually blind the people driving past me on the main road.

I feel like the last update made the auto high beams a bit more aggressive with when they decide to turn on, and for the driving I do, I'm not a fan.


----------



## Finoguy

We live in a neighborhood that doesn't have many streetlights and not much traffic, so I like the auto high beams -- they seem to work really well. I leave them on all the time (though accidentally turn them off sometimes when using the left stalk for the turn signal).


----------



## JeanDeBarraux

SoFlaModel3 said:


> As I scratched my head why I've never seen auto high beams before (I only completed step 1 below) I accidentally realized how they work tonight and wanted to share in case anyone was as lost as me.


I saw that there is auto high beam in the user's manual, but I don't have the option to enable it in the menu. I was wondering where that option was hidden... Instead of the AUTO HIGH BEAM option, I have something for REAR FOG lights. Did Tesla forget to put the option in he menu?? Does anyone else in Europe have the same options or is it just me?


----------



## MelindaV

JeanDeBarraux said:


> I saw that there is auto high beam in the user's manual, but I don't have the option to enable it in the menu. I was wondering where that option was hidden... Instead of the AUTO HIGH BEAM option, I have something for REAR FOG lights. Did Tesla forget to put the option in he menu?? Does anyone else in Europe have the same options or is it just me?


(On the North American cars) it is enabled under the lights tab. (the graphics have changed since the image posted above, but it is in the same general area)
Then once enabled, push the stalk toward the windshield and the highbeam icon will show as grey on the screen, turning blue when the auto highbeams engage. Can manually disengage by pulling stalk back.


----------



## JeanDeBarraux

MelindaV said:


> (On the North American cars) it is enabled under the lights tab. (the graphics have changed since the image posted above, but it is in the same general area)
> Then once enabled, push the stalk toward the windshield and the highbeam icon will show as grey on the screen, turning blue when the auto highbeams engage. Can manually disengage by pulling stalk back.


Got my answer from Tesla support team: "The auto high beam function for Model 3 isn't approved yet by the authority's for the European market. When it's approved it will be made available by a software update. "


----------



## RoccoX

Hey all,

When you are on autopilot, how close does a car in an adjacent lane need to get before autopilot swerves out of the way? I have seen cars get as close as what looks like a foot or so and ended up taking over, I have never seen it swerve out of the way when a car in an adjacent lane gets to close. Also, has anyone noticed that auto high beams seem to not work, recently drove back from Canada and on some really dark roads in New York they never turned on, even with no one around.


----------



## JasonF

I had that problem too before I figured out accidentally that the UI toggle only _enables_ them, it doesn't turn them on. Turn the headlights on and flash the high beams _once_. You'll see a high beam icon with an A on it appear. Now the auto high beams are on.


----------



## Frully

RoccoX said:


> Hey all,
> 
> When you are on autopilot, how close does a car in an adjacent lane need to get before autopilot swerves out of the way? I have seen cars get as close as what looks like a foot or so and ended up taking over, I have never seen it swerve out of the way when a car in an adjacent lane gets to close. Also, has anyone noticed that auto high beams seem to not work, recently drove back from Canada and on some really dark roads in New York they never turned on, even with no one around.


High beams - pull stalk towards self to flash, push away from you to enable.

If in the menu you have auto turned on, it will be auto-high beam. If not, it will be dumb 'on' high beam. Either way, have to push left stalk away to turn HB on.

How far for collision avoidance - damn close. uncomfortably close. Watching various TeslaCam vids of misses it is often well within that 'one foot' distance you describe. I think the certainty that it will activate with is not just distance, but the closing time. If someone slowly comes toward you it won't swerve nearly as badly as someone quickly veering at you.


----------



## mrau

I find it better to think of them as Auto LOW Beams since the stalk has to be in the High Beam position to operate, then the car will automatically go to LOW beam when there is light detected in front of the car. If you move stalk to Low beam position it will stay in Low beam all the time.


----------



## RoccoX

Thanks all!


----------



## sachin07

Does automatic dimmer system in tesla work properly in tesla ? do you face in difficulty while driving ? does this work in every weather conditions like foggy,rainy conditions.


----------



## iChris93

What do you mean by automatic dimmer? Auto-high beams?


----------



## PEIEVGUY

iChris93 said:


> What do you mean by automatic dimmer? Auto-high beams?


If that is what the OP is inquiring about, I would like to chime in that I live rurally and mine work perfectly. It's one of those features that I didn't really think about until I noticed it. It's now one of my favourites!


----------



## Ed Woodrick

Mine work great


----------



## lance.bailey

what I also like is that it is sticky between drives. So i turn it on and it stays on until I turn it off. Some cars need it reset at each drive.


----------



## BluestarE3

sachin07 said:


> Does automatic dimmer system in tesla work properly in tesla ? do you face in difficulty while driving ? does this work in every weather conditions like foggy,rainy conditions.


I would suggest trying it out (assuming you're referring to auto high beam) to see how well it works for your particular driving conditions. Same goes for the automatic wipers. I prefer engaging/disengaging high beams manually since it gives me complete control and it's easy enough to do with the stalk. On the other hand, I do use the automatic wipers option since the manual setting requires me to take a hand off the steering wheel to interact with the touchscreen.


----------



## TrevP

I don't tend to use them unless it's dark and I'm in the country otherwise I find the constant on/off a bit distracting.


----------



## melmartin

When I first got my Model 3 late last year it was pretty awful. I left it alone, then in early July I tried it again for the heck of it and it worked really, really well. I expect during that time it was fixed, but never documented by Tesla.


----------



## FurryOne

I was using mine last night, and while it's pretty good, it does have a tendency to false-dim at times, and I'd like the ability to dial-in the distance from the vehicle ahead that it goes to high beams - it seems to me that its a bit too close at the moment. We don't want people thinking "That $%#& Tesla driver in back of me..."


----------



## mswlogo

Auto high beam is a joke compared to cars having it at half the price. They are on sometimes when they shouldn’t be and off when they shouldn’t be.

And often it can’t make up it’s mind what to do and flashes on and off.

A friend got pulled over by the police for it.


----------



## Klaus-rf

It's not usable on public roads IMHO.


----------



## Mesprit87

melmartin said:


> When I first got my Model 3 late last year it was pretty awful. I left it alone, then in early July I tried it again for the heck of it and it worked really, really well. I expect during that time it was fixed, but never documented by Tesla.


It does seem better than it was initially IMHO.
Mentionning it in the updates would do two things for Tesla:

Admitting they had it wrong
Admitting their fix actually fixed it to what most of us expect...


----------



## Mr. Spacely

Wow. What's with all the negativity people? We must be driving different cars. I have a Tesla Model 3 and my hi beams work great. My auto wipers work well 95% of the time. My car drives itself and changes lanes very well. My paint is good. My panels have no gaps. My phone always works as a key. My backup camera always comes on immediately. I don't have phantom breaking. My batteries still charge fully...


----------



## iChris93

Mr. Spacely said:


> Wow. What's with all the negativity people? We must be driving different cars. I have a Tesla Model 3 and my hi beams work great.


They might have turned it off when it was no good on previous software versions and have not experienced it working well on the newer versions.


----------



## cllc

FurryOne said:


> I was using mine last night, and while it's pretty good, it does have a tendency to false-dim at times, and I'd like the ability to dial-in the distance from the vehicle ahead that it goes to high beams - it seems to me that its a bit too close at the moment. We don't want people thinking "That $%#& Tesla driver in back of me..."


My auto dimming works well, some times it will auto dim when it sees a reflective sign in front of the car, from the the head lights of my car, but don't think that can be fixed.


----------



## FurryOne

Somewhere online there's an amusing story about automatic headlight dimming. Jacob Rabinow patented an automatic dimmer for vehicles in 1952, and tried to get GM to license it, but GM decided it would rather pinch pennies and build it's own, installing it in it's high-end vehicles. But after years of complaints from owners, and lots of tweaks, GM gave up and dropped the option - it kept thinking every streetlight and sign was a car approaching! Jacob knew what the problem was, but never told GM. In a later interview, he explained the difference - his circuit could tell the difference between a light connected to AC from a car light that ran on DC. GM never figured it out. Jacob went on to found RABCO, and produce the SL-8 straight-line tracking tonearm, and receive over 200 patents for his inventions. (I've owned one of his SL-8e tonearms for over 45 years, and it still performs flawlessly.)


----------



## garsh

My Tesla seems to handle street lights correctly. But it's sometimes confused by reflections of its own headlights.


----------



## Dr. J

Mr. Spacely said:


> Wow. What's with all the negativity people?


You can fix 90% of that with the Ignore button. Jus' sayin'.


----------

