Adaptive headlights on pre-highland Model 3 review:
I tried it for the first time tonight driving home late on the highways/freeways, with just the right amount of traffic for it to be having to constantly adapting from cars to no-cars (following and on-coming), so quite a good test.
All in all I give it a 90% rating, which was better than I was expecting based on the quite average performance of the previous Auto-high-beam (which I gave a 60%).
There was only one brief foul recorded - at a sweeping left hand curve on a divided freeway with a significant median with light vegetation - an oncoming car was visible the whole time and when it first appeared it was at directly 12 o'clock (moving around the bend to my right). The headlights responded immediately to it (which was impressive), but as it went further around the bend the headlights failed to follow it correctly and dazzled it. I got the expected flash from the oncoming vehicle and the headlights immediately adapted again correctly again before I could react. So a flash from an oncoming vehicle seems to have the desired effect, which is something.
Adapting for the tail-lights of vehicles ahead seemed to be a bit more problematic, but this might be just my personal generosity. I was trying to judge distances by counting seconds (7 seconds at 100 km/h is 200m was my ball-park). At 200m following distance it would adapt the lights quite consistently. At 300m it sometimes would, sometimes wouldn't - a bit inconsistent. It was particularly obvious when following large trucks because the (often light coloured) rear gate of the trailer would show that the headlight was not adapting for it. I get a bit sensitive about dazzling trucks because those poor folk spend so many hours on the road putting up with inconsiderate drivers, I didn't like what the Tesla was doing and had to intervene.
The trouble with assessing the dazzle of vehicles in train is that you don't get immediate feedback from them (they can't communicate with you with a flash).
Anyway, I think I try to dip my lights out to at least 400m, and the Tesla was only doing it 200-300m, so it's not quite doing it like I would like to.
But the 90% score came from very good behaviour the rest of the time with oncoming traffic, and also by not constantly going to low beam every time it dazzled itself with bright roadsigns. It would adapt to the signs instead. A bit of a flickering lightshow sometimes, but a vast improvement on the previous auto-high-beams.
Also it was quite happy to stay in adaptive when reducing below 40 km/h for the kangaroos - even down to a standstill. But starting out the other morning in the dark for a short drive I couldn't get the adaptive to engage until I got up to 40 km/h. So that's a bit strange, but better than I was hoping.
