turn signals

[TEG]

By the way, Model S 'concept car' doesn't seem to have any of those yellow or red reflective strips anywhere. (You know - like the things on the wheel wells on the Roadster).

 

[johnr]

I think the sudden on-off characteristic of LEDs due to their lack of thermal inertia makes them much more noticeable and is therefore a desirable characteristic. Just my 2 cents...

 

[Tdave]

The instant on of brake lights is a safety feature. The car in front of you travels a not insignifcant distance during the time it takes for an incandecent brake light to light up to an intensity that you will notice as being on, compared to the instant on of an LED brake light.

With the Roadster, there's safety in the fact that the brake light comes on upon accelerator lift, even before I hit the brake. Too bad it's not also an LED brake light.

 

[TEG]

With the Roadster, there's safety in the fact that the brake light comes on upon accelerator lift, even before I hit the brake. Too bad it's not also an LED brake light.

It is an LED brake light, isn't it?

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Another thing that stands out is fast flashing. Sometimes people end up with it by accident because they switched to LED bulbs, or one of their bulbs is burnt out and their thermal driven flasher relay strobes too quickly. Is that a good thing because more people notice the fast flashing turn signal, or is a bad thing because it gives other drivers a headache? (Maybe even an epileptic seizure?)

Many police cars switched to flashers with a more random pattern. Would that be good for turn signals too (random delay flashing)? It probably would get more attention and notice in a crowd of vehicles.

 

[Albern]

Hey Guys,

I don't know if anyone had caught this but from some of our original discussion it looks like the NHTSA is looking into mandating amber as the colour standard for turn signals.

NHTSA Looking to Mandate Rear Turn-Signal Color - KickingTires

Some interesting points (some we've discussed) are also being brought up here.

REPORT: NHTSA may mandate amber turn signals

 

[SByer]

After our original discussion, I expended way too many brain cells on thinking about this and came up with this priority order:

1) Turn blinker should never be allowed to be geometrically overlaid with brake signals. I'm looking at you, Cadillac.

2) on and off state of the turn signals while blinking should never be equal to the not turning state. For analog signals, having the current vs. resistance of the bulb going through a mostly sine wave state suffices (though incredibly few cars manage this very cheap solution). For LEDs, when "blinking", the off state should be some percentage (25%?) of the lit state (by number of LEDs lit or by current-limited brightness - NOT by time-sliced brightness, which is annoying when glancing around the road). The Roadsters lights fall short here. If combined with 1, the turns signals officially suck. I'm looking at you again, Cadillac.

3) The color should be amber. I've seen red turn lights that are better than amber ones, but the above two things being equal, amber wins. Screw up 1 and 2, though, and amber won't make up for it. The US Roadster misses this, too. Ah, well. But I suspect an anonymizer and ordering parts from the Tesla European store (eventually) may solve this.

It just stuns me that the US hasn't already mandated amber. I'd like it to mandate non-co-location and the brightness thing as well, but I don't expect our government is that smart or quick.

 

[TEG]

Agree strongly with all your points, SByer.

 

[bobw]

NHTSA studies on amber turn signals:

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811115.PDF April 2009

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/staticfiles/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/Multimedia/PDFs/Crash Avoidance/2008/811 037.pdf

 

[johnr]

...NOT by time-sliced brightness, which is annoying when glancing around the road

I'm glad someone brought this up! I can instantly tell when a car has LED tail lights because when I scan left or right I see this AWFUL flicker effect that is so distracting!

 

[vfx]

Brain cells NOT wasted.

 

[Lloyd]

I like the new rear end, including the orange turn signals. If these were not availble in the US I would be willing to buy the overseas parts and intall here. I have done that with Porsches in past.

 

[TEG]

Old, but:

NHTSA Looking to Mandate Rear Turn-Signal Color - KickingTires