I am wondering, what happens with the head light when you drive from UK to Europe? Do the headlights adjust automatically? Will the car know to overtake on the left?
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What happens when you drive from UK to Europe? Headlight? Self drive overtaking?
- Thread starter RichardTheKing
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Sparkeur
Member
I have a left hand drive Model 3 as I live in France. I've noted that after some software upgrades, I'm getting flashed and have to realign my headlamps. When I've driven in the UK, I've had no problems presumably because I again make a slight adjustment. I know what the manual says but 5 seconds of adjusting before getting off the ferry seems worth the trouble.
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AutomaticMan
Member
I’m not sure what 5 seconds of adjusting I should have done? As others have posted, the beam kicks up so much on the left that if I adjust the beam down enough that the left side of the beam doesn’t dazzle oncoming drivers, the centre/right side of the beam would be so low that I wouldn’t be able to see anything in front of me. What am I missing here?
Also not sure it’s my fault for believing the manual
What other bits of the manual should I just assume are wrong and ignore? Perhaps if they provided accurate information in the manual they would make it easier for owners?
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the odd thing is that the beam is fixed at all. The 'kick' is lovely for single lane roads to highlight pavements/pedestrians, but on multilane roads you're also dazzling cars in front of you if you're in anything other than the leftmost lane.
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What's weird is the kick up seems to occur on both headlights so you are annoying people in front all the time from the right side light.
Based on the repair manual it seems LHD vehicles kick up to the left too. So it must just be a characteristic of the lamp design itself - Tesla should be able to turn those pixels off, but without adaptive lighting....
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the entire point of that LED component from Samsung/Hella is to support multiple country requirements and light patterns with a single lamp enclosure. Even without 'adaptive' matrix that move as you drive, you shouldn't be restricted in having each car 'boot up' in the correct local pattern and stay like that. No excuse to have LHD countries like that, its crazy - you can just invert that triangle to ramp to the right.
Odd (and stupid)
Odd (and stupid)
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Well I’m alright, Jack. Now that we know there is an issue maybe have some respect for the people in the country your visiting. £5 from Amazon.
Oh and raise a service ticket.
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AutomaticMan
Member
Was thinking about this… how can you raise a service ticket without booking an appointment? No point in me bringing my car to a service centre for this, they just need to flag it to Tesla so their engineers can add changing the Matrix beam pattern to suit the country you drive to (as the manual says it should!) in a future software update.
I do actually have a service appointment for a squeaky driver’s seat later in June, so I’m thinking I’ll just mention it to the service centre people and ask that they flag it to Tesla then?
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Raise a ticket and Tesla will probably cancel it. More tickets = issue gets attention. If it gets to the day before the appointment then you can move the date forward or cancel it.
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Sparkeur
Member
Actually, the French law does not require you to have a Hi-Viz (gilet jaune) for every passenger, just for the driver. Having said that, a lot of people do carry two in the glovebox. Unlike the UK where you can only normally be stopped for a reason, when driving in France you can be pulled over at any time. It is quite normal for the Gendarmerie to do routine traffic stops at péages or at town roundabouts and crossroads. If they stop you, apart from driving documentation they may ask to see your kit sécurité voiture. If you don't have what's required, that's the point they'll fine. Just in case, for those continuing to Spain, the requirement there is two warning triangles.
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Well, I can either eat humble pie, (I wasted £5?) or take Tesla’s response with a pinch of salt.
“Thank you for your mobile service request. There is no headlamp adjustments required for temporarily driving in territory's where the traffic direction has changed. The headlamp has been designed such that it will not cause discomfort or dazzle to other road users. As a mobile appointment is no longer required, please can you confirm you are happy for me to remove this from our diary?”
“Thank you for your mobile service request. There is no headlamp adjustments required for temporarily driving in territory's where the traffic direction has changed. The headlamp has been designed such that it will not cause discomfort or dazzle to other road users. As a mobile appointment is no longer required, please can you confirm you are happy for me to remove this from our diary?”
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reply - thank you. I will take this as legally binding and if I get a fine I'll pop it in the post to Elon.
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AutomaticMan
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Sounds like the Service Centre just read the manual and believed it. I literally saw with my own eyes the ‘kick up’ on the left blinding French people, and then blinding me when they flashed their headlights angrily at me
One thing that would be interesting to know is whether the cars in left hand drive markets have lights that kick up to the right? I assume they must do and are just the opposite of the UK beam pattern? If not, then I have no idea what is going on. All I know is that it’s rare that people flash their lights at me in the UK, but it happened often on a night time drive through France. Since that experience, I’ve planned my other driving while in Europe to occur during the daytime so I don’t annoy anyone else.
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Sparkeur
Member
As I may have written before, mine light pretty much down the centre of the road. The only time I have had a problem in my home markets (France & Spain) is after a software upgrade when they point upwards and I've been flashed. After adjusting them, no problem.
I really think that if you just make a slight adjustment of the headlamps downwards, you'll be fine. I do the same - just in case- when I visit the UK.
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AutomaticMan
Member
Oh yes, sorry, I’m on holiday so checking this forum on my phone and missed that.
Well, that is truly bizarre then. If the beam deliberately kicks up on the same side regardless of which side of the road you drive on, how can that possibly be correct? Surely either the LHD cars are wrong or the RHD cars are wrong?
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