Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Next Generation Headlights?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Very true, however with the new sensor hardware (ultrasonic, radar, camera) and rolling out of firmware upgrades this year, I expect that the likelihood of front end damage will decrease significantly compared to pre-September 2014 Teslas.

The likelihood of major crashes that total the car may not reduce as much, but minor crashes may reduce quite a bit. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years.
Likelihood may decrease, but expense will increase... Not only expensive lights but sensors!
 
Very true, however with the new sensor hardware (ultrasonic, radar, camera) and rolling out of firmware upgrades this year, I expect that the likelihood of front end damage will decrease significantly compared to pre-September 2014 Teslas.

The likelihood of major crashes that total the car may not reduce as much, but minor crashes may reduce quite a bit. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years.

Don't worry, technology doesn't fix stupid. Like the car that JUST BARELY made it past me as it was totally out of control on the snowy road. Would have made quite the dent had I not managed to move just enough out of the way. Great way to end a Tesla with not even 2,000 miles on it.

Also something something LED headlights. Obligatory "my Leaf has them.."
 
Last edited:
I attended the European "D" launch event in Interlaken, Switzerland last Friday. After the formal presentation by Jerome Guillen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAVmTdQIpE) he was around to talk to people. One guy asked about the new headlights and mentioned the pictures from this thread (with Tesla engraving etc.). Jerome truly looked puzzled and didn't know about this thread / pictures / any new headlights. Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't any being tried out, but it seemed to me that at least Jerome wasn't aware of any developments in regards to new headlights.
 
the test mule car is here again. I'd say for certain it's not an aftermarket job - if it was retrofitted in, the lens would have the DOT D3S stamp/engraving on them. Only thing I can make out that's remotely close to a bulb spec is "DCR".

The passenger headlight is already fogging up, and I can see stress cracks on the LED housing within the headlamps.

- - - Updated - - -

the vin is: 5yjsa1h23efr54770

Seems like a release candidate vehicle according to vindecorderz
 
IMG_0101.jpg
IMG_0107.jpg
IMG_0112.jpg
IMG_0113.jpg
IMG_0114.jpg
IMG_0116.jpg
IMG_0120.jpg


hi res video to come
 
Umm, I don't have much to compare this to, so I could be way off, but do those Next Gen back headrests look shorter than the standard Next Gen back headrests? Or are they actually 1.5 seats perhaps? Or even the original seats with lower headrests? It's hard to tell from the picture.
 
Last edited:
The VIN number means it was assigned sometime around July or early August (I had 56107 that was assigned in August) of 2014. Can't necessarily tell when the car was made other than it was for sure made in 2014. But I'd be that internal cars are made much closer to VIN assignment than customer cars. So I wouldn't be surprised if this was made around August or September. I'd say after September due to the autopilot but it's not like this car didn't have other changes that weren't on customer cars.

As far as the headlights. I'd bet one of two things happened.

1) They were working on these lights when working on the D. They included them expecting to include them in the D vehicles and they didn't get done in time. As a release candidate car it's not something they can sell to the public. So they probably have an employee using it for something and forgot about the headlights.

2) They had this vehicle laying around. They are working on the headlights now and decided to stick it on this vehicle. Some employee is driving it to test them.

I agree that these can't be aftermarket. Either way they're in development. If they're adaptive I'd bet that they can't be retrofitted due to additional wiring that would be needed.
 
I have vin 55951 and it was built Nov 2014.

Build date doesn't happen in VIN order. VIN assignment does happen in order. If you can find someone that knows when their VIN was assigned and it's close to the VIN on that car you can tell roughly when the VIN was assigned to the build. However, we have no way of knowing when the order was built.

My S85 was assigned in August and built in September and had a very short window from assignment to build. So I had a very high VIN compared to most other vehicles being built and delivered.

My 85D on the other hand had the VIN assigned in December but wasn't built until February. So I had a very low VIN compared to other vehicles being delivered.