the insurance industry and safety bugs are going to be applauding this now that we've nailed anti-lock brakes stability control crumple zones airbags automatic emergency braking the insurance and safety world has been crowing about america's backward headlights as possibly the worst single thing still on u.s cars that is impeding safety so this is welcome and overdue

as i look at this i have four questions or observations on my mind first of all who's going to get this stuff when it arrives is it going to be one of those things like massage seats that's only available on premium cars at a high optional cost i could see that because this would seem to require significant additional expense in terms of hardware that the average car may not have

it's not like automatic emergency braking which spread rapidly to cars because it was largely leveraging sensors and actuators that were being installed anyway for other reasons it doesn't look like the smart headlights will necessarily follow that path and that would be a shame audi for example describes one of their smart headlight modules as a million digital micro mirrors moving at five kilohertz that doesn't sound cheap does it

next this whole idea of smart headlights may get rid of a whole bunch of customs and techniques we've learned as drivers and done for ages and that is obviously you dip your headlights low when a car is on coming some people are much better at this than others some don't do it at all and then there's the idea that if someone doesn't dip their headlights you look down to the uh right lane line right that's how you kind of avert your eyes from their beam but still make sure you're in your lane

that's an old trick i hope you've learned all of that's going to become the stuff of ancient motoring lore and perhaps most interestingly prepare for a total 180 on the idea of how we use low beams and high beams right now we generally default to low and pop on the highs when we think we're in a really dark place and there's no oncoming traffic in the future high beams will be the beams and low cut off beams would be something the car does dynamically and momentarily only when there is oncoming traffic

that's a completely different way to approach high beams i think it's a better way now i mentioned a minute ago i'm going to tell you about what's coming next after what's coming next once these adaptive smart headlights are out there that seems to open the door for headlights that go a step beyond and that is almost create augmented reality out there on the road

look at what mercedes has done what audi has done what ford has most recently announced all kinds of information projecting headlights that use a high resolution matrix of emitters in the headlight to create graphical displays on the ground and i don't mean silly stuff like a logo under a puddle mirror i mean important things like when you stop and recognize the pedestrian the car can paint a temporary illuminated crosswalk for them

or when you're under navigation why not have the headlights put a slightly brighter arrow on the road that tells you where to turn instead of doing the head-up display on the windshield are you glancing at the dash or worse at your phone how about the speed limit always being in front of you so you never don't know because the car's headlights are putting a little speed round l on the ground i mean the mind boggles at the things that a smart headlight intelligent graphical projector could do while also illuminating the road

this snowball can start to run downhill pretty fast now a caveat or a concern i'm worried that when these adaptive smart headlights arrive they may not be so smart it's a big jump to go from the headlights we have now to ones that can take a high resolution scan of the road in real time and adjust their illumination and beam cut off adaptively and dynamically many times per second

whoa i've driven enough of these late model cars that merely have smart sensors to dim their own high beams which isn't asking too much and they often aren't that smart so this sort of thing may be one of those options where you want to lay back and wait for the first few model years to work out the bugs before you jump in if it's affordable at all

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou'd be forgiven for not noticing because there were some other things going on in late 21 but a new u.s federal code was passed that is going to catapult cars we buy in this country into the future of headlight technology let me show you what door just got opened the headlights on today's even high-tech cars are one of the dumbest things unsaid cars sure you may have a technology that lets the car automatically go from high to low beam something which cars have been doing since 1955 but the coming new headlights that are about to be allowed in the us are going to be able to do a nuanced variation between low and high beam and not necessarily be binary it can be grades of brightness and also shapes that are dynamically cut and diced based on what's in front of you what you need to see and who you don't want to blind these really will be smart headlights until these new regulations were just passed headlights on us cars could be low beam or high beam or that's it they couldn't both be on at once they couldn't be a hybrid of the two it was really restrictive but in recent years car makers including audi and bmw in particular have been showing and offering in other places headlights that can use sensors to look at what's coming how much dark road is in front and how many oncoming cars there are and where are they as they move cutting off the beam patterns so it's not blasting into another driver's eyes but keeping full brightness in many cases on the dark part of the road where you'd like to still have high beams it's the best of both worlds ultra low beam in the other driver's face total high beam out where you need to see and not only is it smarter to put light where you need it cut it off where you don't and vary the beam in terms of an intelligent matrix but it also gets away from this binary high or low thing which for older drivers can create some real problems as you switch between the two illumination levels and eyes take a moment or two to adjust the good news is we're not going to be inventing it from scratch because as i mentioned a number of car makers in europe and asia have been offering these lights that do these intelligent sensing changes to their illumination and pattern we just have to sort of bring that into this country and put it into our legalese the new us regulations don't cut and paste from existing european ones or from an industry standard called j3069 instead coming up with a hybrid that our regulators think will work better that's going to be something of a headache for car makers who prefer to harmonize their products around the world i'm going to tell you about what is also coming next in just a minute but know that the insurance industry and safety bugs are going to be applauding this now that we've nailed anti-lock brakes stability control crumple zones airbags automatic emergency braking the insurance and safety world has been crowing about america's backward headlights as possibly the worst single thing still on u.s cars that is impeding safety so this is welcome and overdue now as i look at this i have four questions or observations on my mind first of all who's going to get this stuff when it arrives is it going to be one of those things like massage seats that's only available on premium cars at a high optional cost i could see that because this would seem to require significant additional expense in terms of hardware that the average car may not have a really new kind of headlight module it's not like automatic emergency braking which spread rapidly to cars because it was largely leveraging sensors and actuators that were being installed anyway for other reasons it doesn't look like the smart headlights will necessarily follow that path and that would be a shame audi for example describes one of their smart headlight modules as a million digital micro mirrors moving at five kilohertz that doesn't sound cheap does it next this whole idea of smart headlights may get rid of a whole bunch of customs and techniques we've learned as drivers and done for ages and that is obviously you dip your headlights low when a car is on coming some people are much better at this than others some don't do it at all and then there's the idea that if someone doesn't dip their headlights you look down to the uh right lane line right that's how you kind of avert your eyes from their beam but still make sure you're in your lane that's an old trick i hope you've learned all of that's going to become the stuff of ancient motoring lore and perhaps most interestingly prepare for a total 180 on the idea of how we use low beams and high beams right now we generally default to low and pop on the highs when we think we're in a really dark place and there's no oncoming traffic in the future high beams will be the beams and low cut off beams would be something the car does dynamically and momentarily only when there is oncoming traffic that's a completely different way to approach high beams i think it's a better way now i mentioned a minute ago i'm going to tell you about what's coming next after what's coming next once these adaptive smart headlights are out there that seems to open the door for headlights that go a step beyond and that is almost create augmented reality out there on the road look at what mercedes has done what audi has done what ford has most recently announced all kinds of information projecting headlights that use a high resolution matrix of emitters in the headlight to create graphical displays on the ground and i don't mean silly stuff like a logo under a puddle mirror i mean important things like when you stop and recognize the pedestrian the car can paint a temporary illuminated crosswalk for them or when you're under navigation why not have the headlights put a slightly brighter arrow on the road that tells you where to turn instead of doing the head-up display on the windshield are you glancing at the dash or worse at your phone how about the speed limit always being in front of you so you never don't know because the car's headlights are putting a little speed round l on the ground i mean the mind boggles at the things that a smart headlight intelligent graphical projector could do while also illuminating the road this snowball can start to run downhill pretty fast now a caveat or a concern i'm worried that when these adaptive smart headlights arrive they may not be so smart it's a big jump to go from the headlights we have now to ones that can take a high resolution scan of the road in real time and adjust their illumination and beam cut off adaptively and dynamically many times per second whoa i'm concerned they'll be a little wonky you know kind of like those hands-free faucets in an airport bathroom you get water when you don't want it you don't get water when you do want it yeah i've driven enough of these late model cars that merely have smart sensors to dim their own high beams which isn't asking too much and they often aren't that smart so this sort of thing may be one of those options where you want to lay back and wait for the first few model years to work out the bugs before you jump in if it's affordable at allyou'd be forgiven for not noticing because there were some other things going on in late 21 but a new u.s federal code was passed that is going to catapult cars we buy in this country into the future of headlight technology let me show you what door just got opened the headlights on today's even high-tech cars are one of the dumbest things unsaid cars sure you may have a technology that lets the car automatically go from high to low beam something which cars have been doing since 1955 but the coming new headlights that are about to be allowed in the us are going to be able to do a nuanced variation between low and high beam and not necessarily be binary it can be grades of brightness and also shapes that are dynamically cut and diced based on what's in front of you what you need to see and who you don't want to blind these really will be smart headlights until these new regulations were just passed headlights on us cars could be low beam or high beam or that's it they couldn't both be on at once they couldn't be a hybrid of the two it was really restrictive but in recent years car makers including audi and bmw in particular have been showing and offering in other places headlights that can use sensors to look at what's coming how much dark road is in front and how many oncoming cars there are and where are they as they move cutting off the beam patterns so it's not blasting into another driver's eyes but keeping full brightness in many cases on the dark part of the road where you'd like to still have high beams it's the best of both worlds ultra low beam in the other driver's face total high beam out where you need to see and not only is it smarter to put light where you need it cut it off where you don't and vary the beam in terms of an intelligent matrix but it also gets away from this binary high or low thing which for older drivers can create some real problems as you switch between the two illumination levels and eyes take a moment or two to adjust the good news is we're not going to be inventing it from scratch because as i mentioned a number of car makers in europe and asia have been offering these lights that do these intelligent sensing changes to their illumination and pattern we just have to sort of bring that into this country and put it into our legalese the new us regulations don't cut and paste from existing european ones or from an industry standard called j3069 instead coming up with a hybrid that our regulators think will work better that's going to be something of a headache for car makers who prefer to harmonize their products around the world i'm going to tell you about what is also coming next in just a minute but know that the insurance industry and safety bugs are going to be applauding this now that we've nailed anti-lock brakes stability control crumple zones airbags automatic emergency braking the insurance and safety world has been crowing about america's backward headlights as possibly the worst single thing still on u.s cars that is impeding safety so this is welcome and overdue now as i look at this i have four questions or observations on my mind first of all who's going to get this stuff when it arrives is it going to be one of those things like massage seats that's only available on premium cars at a high optional cost i could see that because this would seem to require significant additional expense in terms of hardware that the average car may not have a really new kind of headlight module it's not like automatic emergency braking which spread rapidly to cars because it was largely leveraging sensors and actuators that were being installed anyway for other reasons it doesn't look like the smart headlights will necessarily follow that path and that would be a shame audi for example describes one of their smart headlight modules as a million digital micro mirrors moving at five kilohertz that doesn't sound cheap does it next this whole idea of smart headlights may get rid of a whole bunch of customs and techniques we've learned as drivers and done for ages and that is obviously you dip your headlights low when a car is on coming some people are much better at this than others some don't do it at all and then there's the idea that if someone doesn't dip their headlights you look down to the uh right lane line right that's how you kind of avert your eyes from their beam but still make sure you're in your lane that's an old trick i hope you've learned all of that's going to become the stuff of ancient motoring lore and perhaps most interestingly prepare for a total 180 on the idea of how we use low beams and high beams right now we generally default to low and pop on the highs when we think we're in a really dark place and there's no oncoming traffic in the future high beams will be the beams and low cut off beams would be something the car does dynamically and momentarily only when there is oncoming traffic that's a completely different way to approach high beams i think it's a better way now i mentioned a minute ago i'm going to tell you about what's coming next after what's coming next once these adaptive smart headlights are out there that seems to open the door for headlights that go a step beyond and that is almost create augmented reality out there on the road look at what mercedes has done what audi has done what ford has most recently announced all kinds of information projecting headlights that use a high resolution matrix of emitters in the headlight to create graphical displays on the ground and i don't mean silly stuff like a logo under a puddle mirror i mean important things like when you stop and recognize the pedestrian the car can paint a temporary illuminated crosswalk for them or when you're under navigation why not have the headlights put a slightly brighter arrow on the road that tells you where to turn instead of doing the head-up display on the windshield are you glancing at the dash or worse at your phone how about the speed limit always being in front of you so you never don't know because the car's headlights are putting a little speed round l on the ground i mean the mind boggles at the things that a smart headlight intelligent graphical projector could do while also illuminating the road this snowball can start to run downhill pretty fast now a caveat or a concern i'm worried that when these adaptive smart headlights arrive they may not be so smart it's a big jump to go from the headlights we have now to ones that can take a high resolution scan of the road in real time and adjust their illumination and beam cut off adaptively and dynamically many times per second whoa i'm concerned they'll be a little wonky you know kind of like those hands-free faucets in an airport bathroom you get water when you don't want it you don't get water when you do want it yeah i've driven enough of these late model cars that merely have smart sensors to dim their own high beams which isn't asking too much and they often aren't that smart so this sort of thing may be one of those options where you want to lay back and wait for the first few model years to work out the bugs before you jump in if it's affordable at all\n"