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
- Start date
Just got back from France thinking with research and Tesla manual advice lights would be fine on 2022 Y - Basically you need to adjust the lights down, we had loads of complaints. Also the Halfords light converters we had didn't have instructions to fit to a Tesla y so had to give up with those. We adjusted the lights in the Menu with abit if guess work and then had to work out how to correct back in the UK. not worked that one out yet though ... I would have thought Tesla could easily have it auto adjust ... Charging was very good though to get to the Alps, super chargers all the way.
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Cardo
Active Member
The Y is a tall car so the lights are quite high, to begin with. In my experience, drivers on the continent are quick to complain, even though a lot of local cars have quite high up lights, these days.
In relation to adjusting the lights back for “the UK,” simply do an auto calibration whilst parked on a level surface. It’ll set them back to where they should be.
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I don’t use headlight deflectors and I don’t adjust my headlights when I travel to mainland Europe (and yes, I’m a horrible person). Thirty years ago when I was living in Germany I planned a trip to the UK taking my German car for the first time. I went into the local ADAC office to ask about headlight deflectors and the man laughed out loud and said “Oh, that’s only for the English, we don’t have to do that.” (My German was good enough that it wasn’t immediately obvious that I was a Brit). Since then I have never used deflectors. My experience is that French drivers (usually the ones with badly adjusted headlights themselves) flash everyone and it doesn’t matter if you are in a British, German, or any other car.
Having said that my Model Y (currently in France) doesn’t seem to have much if any of a kick up on the left and I have only been flashed a couple of times.
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Doudeau
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I go to France every month and have not had anyone flash me whilst in the Tesla. It used to happen often in previous cars even with deflectors fitted.
I think it’s part of the Tesla lottery on how your lights are setup as, in the UK, I regularly look in rear view mirror when a car on other side has had dazzling headlights to see the rear lights of a Tesla 3 or Y.
I think it’s part of the Tesla lottery on how your lights are setup as, in the UK, I regularly look in rear view mirror when a car on other side has had dazzling headlights to see the rear lights of a Tesla 3 or Y.
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Heading to northern Spain in a month so was interested to read this. On the RAC website it says only residents are required to have two
However, the AA website agrees with you and says
I suppose buying another to go with the one Tesla supply in the first aid kit wouldn't hurt but does anyone have a link to anything definitive for Spain?
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Cardo
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I’ve been in Spain for a few weeks and last night was the first time I’ve driven at night. As opposed to last time I was in Spain, I noticed my headlights were significantly higher up and I was being flashed almost immediately after setting off. I ended up parking up and manually lowering both left and right lights by 4 notches. This may now be a little too low so I may adjust them up a bit, but at least this did stop being flashed fairly regularly.
At some point it appears our lights have been raised, as last time I could see the beams didn’t go higher up than most cars’ bonnets, but this time I could see it was covering the entire windscreens and even lorries were getting grumpy.
Of note, if you do make adjustments you need to remember what changes you’ve made in order to reverse the changes upon returning to the UK. When going into the light adjustment setting, the lights carry out a calibration, however they still remember the adjustment. If you go crazy with the adjustments and don’t make a note of the changes, you’d probably have to go through the full calibration procedure requiring a level area and a wall you can make some marks on to return the lights to the correct location.
At some point it appears our lights have been raised, as last time I could see the beams didn’t go higher up than most cars’ bonnets, but this time I could see it was covering the entire windscreens and even lorries were getting grumpy.
Of note, if you do make adjustments you need to remember what changes you’ve made in order to reverse the changes upon returning to the UK. When going into the light adjustment setting, the lights carry out a calibration, however they still remember the adjustment. If you go crazy with the adjustments and don’t make a note of the changes, you’d probably have to go through the full calibration procedure requiring a level area and a wall you can make some marks on to return the lights to the correct location.
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I brought this up with Tesla Service team if the Model Y with matrix LEDs headlights does automatically adjust (or if there is a facility to manually change LHS kick up), as I was dazzling other drivers on a trip to France. Their response was: "There's no legal requirement to have the headlights adjusted when traveling in different regions such as France, however is advised by RAC and others to use headlamp beam deflectors to not dazzle other drivers. We do not sell them ourselves, however places like Halfords and Amazon do."
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Cardo
Active Member
That is shocking advice. Headlight beam deflectors don’t really work with LED headlights. You’re far better off going into headlight calibration and taking the lights down 2 or 3 notches. Just remember what changes you make so you can reverse them upon your return to the UK.
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Cardo
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Reviving this thread to update my previous comments. A couple of people on the update threads have commented there has been an undocumented change in a recent update and the car now does automatically flip the lights over. When driving in a LHD country, a notification pops up stating it is adjusting the lights due to the location of the car, and apparently the uptick swaps over to the right side of the beams. I have not been able to test this myself as yet, but a couple of people have confirmed it. A welcome change!
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Just to follow up on this, while I was in France over Christmas my headlights did adjust automatically from dipped to the left to dipped to the right. Hopefully you can see it on the attached picture that I took while in France. My car is an early 2023 RHD Model Y standard range. My daughter said she saw a message come up on the screen when we got off the ferry on returning to the UK saying "adjusting headlight beams to right hand drive" (or similar)
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What make is this one? The one advertised on euro tunnels website is €8 for the first year, then €4 after that. Then a €5 euro active use fee (xonly for the months in which the tag is used and capped at €10 in any subscription year) PLUS the €20 deposit... seems more hassle than its worth? I drive to France a lot and it is always a pain waking up my girlfriend and having her almost have to get out the car but just can't seem to justify the tonnes of extras..
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I use emovis (Emovis Tag UK), which sounds like the one you describe. It's actually no hassle at all. Set up the account, order the tag, drive, pay the bills and that's it. There are other, and probably cheaper ones, but I find this one convenient.
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Just returned from France (back to UK) and can confirm that my M3LR '22 plate with matrix headlights automatically adjusted my beam direction as I drove off the channel tunnel carriage within about 1 minute of arrival (initial entrance to France and return to UK) A message popped up stating headlights were adjusted.
I did get a couple of flashes whilst driving a total of 1400 miles across France but I'm putting that down to the auto highbeams not dipping in time for the opposing lorry drivers as their headlights were hidden by the central reservation but their cab is set higher. Positive experience.
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That's a very welcome change since I've had to remove them to register my RHD in Poland.Similar threads
