Matrix (Glare Free) headlights - inner workings

[GDN]

I'm making some assumptions, but I figure our headlights in the Lightning are very similar to the Tesla (or any) Matrix headlights. Tesla is about to release SW that will enable the full use of the matrix headlights on all of US cars that have the hardware (the equivalent of the Glare Free in Ford.). The US Govt approved this in Dec 2022. Ford should enable Glare Free for all US owners, it's a very simple switch for them.

Tesla has put the matrix hardware in some of their cars, but not all. I was searching to see what I could find on the difference to see if our Y has the right hardware and I found a good article and tear down. The good news is that we do have the hardware in the Y. Turns out the differentiator is the round projector lamp like we have on all of our trucks. So I'm excited to get the SW on the Tesla in a few weeks.

Now back to why I've posted this in our Lightning forum. Here is a link to the article and tear down of a Tesla Matrix headlight. The very same principles will apply to our headlights. These things are much more complicated that I would have imagined and I'm truly very surprised Ford put this headlight in every model of the Lightning due to cost. The true LED board and pixels doing the work is very surprising. It's a bit easier to see why these cost north of $1K. Hard to swallow, but amazing none the less.

Tesla actually has a light show you can play from the car, choreographed to music - and will spell Tesla with the lights, open and close the trunk and frunk (if motorized) and the doors on the X. It's easy to see how Ford could do the same if they wanted to let their creative side show.

Article:
https://teslanorth.com/2021/12/26/heres-the-tech-behind-teslas-matrix-led-headlights-video/

Youtube teardown:


Youtube - jump to where the actual board is finally uncovered:

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[chillaban]

FWIW don't get super super excited. The Tesla matrix projector (Samsung) has almost the most "pixels" on the market, it's something between 250 and 300. The Ford one is only around half of that.

Don't get me wrong, glare-free headlights are super cool and I'm glad Ford put this unused equipment in NA models (probably just thanks to Canada), but the Tesla Samsung projector is actually much more advanced. You cannot draw cool logos and animations using the Ford model. It makes it extra ironic the Tesla one has been shipping for 2-3 years and it's completely unused.

 

[Heliian]

As a Canadian owner, I really like the lighting in the lightning.

I was never a big fan of the old auto highbeam and found it distracting at times.

The adaptive or glare free or whatever you call this system is fantastic. The transitions are smooth and having lights on your side while not blinding oncoming cars is a great safety feature. It also stops itself from blinding the car in front of you.
I just leave my lights in auto all the time now.

Maybe the usa will get this feature enabled eventually but it's up to the regulators.

Ford could do the same if they wanted to let their creative side show.

You cannot draw cool logos and animations using the Ford model.

Creative sure, worth it, no. Let's focus on actual qol improvements instead of fart noises.

 

[The Weatherman]

Wonder if we’ll see this before or after BC 1.4?

Oh wait we are getting BC 1.4 before the end of the year. . (2023 for those that may not have been aware.)

 

[Pioneer74]

Wonder if we’ll see this before or after BC 1.4?

Oh wait we are getting BC 1.4 before the end of the year. . (2023 for those that may not have been aware.)

Soon.

 

[F150ROD]

Sorry @GDN its not going to happen. Those type of software updates are foreign to Ford.

But just know….. they’ve been working hard….

 

[Runaway Tractor]

Ford should enable Glare Free for all US owners, it's a very simple switch for them.

Managing software updates in a timely, correct, and sensible manner is clearly not one of Ford's strong points.

 

[GDN]

FWIW don't get super super excited. The Tesla matrix projector (Samsung) has almost the most "pixels" on the market, it's something between 250 and 300. The Ford one is only around half of that.

Don't get me wrong, glare-free headlights are super cool and I'm glad Ford put this unused equipment in NA models (probably just thanks to Canada), but the Tesla Samsung projector is actually much more advanced. You cannot draw cool logos and animations using the Ford model. It makes it extra ironic the Tesla one has been shipping for 2-3 years and it's completely unused.

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize we had fewer pixels, but I have them activated and they still do a great job, so thankful for them.

The good news is I will get to see how well they work in the Tesla. They are about to activate them for US cars. Tesla put them in the US cars for 2-3 years knowing they would get to activate the some day. I'm hoping Ford had that in their plan and will do so as well, but I'm not counting on it.

 

[GDN]

As a Canadian owner, I really like the lighting in the lightning.

I was never a big fan of the old auto highbeam and found it distracting at times.

The adaptive or glare free or whatever you call this system is fantastic. The transitions are smooth and having lights on your side while not blinding oncoming cars is a great safety feature. It also stops itself from blinding the car in front of you.
I just leave my lights in auto all the time now.

Maybe the usa will get this feature enabled eventually but it's up to the regulators.



Creative sure, worth it, no. Let's focus on actual qol improvements instead of fart noises.

I've always been a little torn about this, but we are not talking about 2 like companies here. Tesla doesn't have FSD working, but pretty much anything else they do excels and leaves competition in the dust software wise. So if they want to play a little and show off their skills and bring a smile to some I'm OK with it.

On the other had we have our stodgy Ford, that is still trying to find the light switch. They can't figure out how to do proper checks and charge the LV battery before letting a SW install fail for 10 times. This is even after replacing the LV battery sensor.

We know for a fact that with a few simple lines of code Ford can also activate the Glare free/matrix lighting for all US owners, if they would. We paid some good money in the Lightning prices for the expensive hardware, put it to use and deliver some value.

 

[vandy1981]

The US Govt approved this in Dec 2022. Ford should enable Glare Free for all US owners, it's a very simple switch for them.

I'd temper your optimism. NHTSA's FMVSS 108 rules are dissimilar enough from other countries that they require software and hardware changes, so it's not a matter of just flipping a switch. Existing vehicles with matrix headlight hardware may never be activated.

It's a shame that they just didn't copy the EU regulations because we would already have had thousands of vehicles with matrix headlights on the road almost overnight.

 

[G-Zeus]

You can activate the matrix headlights using Forscan. They work very well. (so I'm told... )

 

[GDN]

You can activate the matrix headlights using Forscan. They work very well. (so I'm told... )

Mine are activated.

 

[jefrank]

You can activate the matrix headlights using Forscan. They work very well. (so I'm told... )

I cannot confirm nor deny that statement

 

[chillaban]

I'd temper your optimism. NHTSA's FMVSS 108 rules are dissimilar enough from other countries that they require software and hardware changes, so it's not a matter of just flipping a switch. Existing vehicles with matrix headlight hardware may never be activated.

It's a shame that they just didn't copy the EU regulations because we would already have had thousands of vehicles with matrix headlights on the road almost overnight.

As a former automotive engineer: Completely agreed here. The NHTSA FMVSS 108 rules are corresponding to a brand new SAE (American) standard for glare-free headlights. The existing EU / UN-ECE legislation is completely different even though conceptually it sounds like the same thing.

If Ford doesn't do anything, they don't have risk. If they enable glare-free and it's found not to be compliant with FMVSS 108, that can trigger a safety recall and all the costs associated with one. Even if they wanted to enable glare-free and make some tweaks, it's not clear what that would entail and which vendors would have to do additional work. Unlike Tesla's architecture where the Autopilot computer is a high-compute-power general purpose computer with NPU acceleration, Ford's Mobileye based solution has a lot more fixed-purpose hardware that's not as flexible to be radically reprogrammed in software. Nor has Ford shown any desire to do this kind of dramatic rewrite, unlike Tesla which has rewritten the ADAS software stack 3 or so times since the hardware came out.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that Ford won't officially activate matrix headlights in the USA until a future hardware generation where a supplier sells Ford a complete out of the box solution that the supplier built and lobbied from ground up to be FMVSS 108 compliant. In the meantime, if you have a glare-free capable Ford, activating it via Forscan is low-risk and one of the biggest lighting-related upgrades you can do.

 

[G-Zeus]

As a former automotive engineer: Completely agreed here. The NHTSA FMVSS 108 rules are corresponding to a brand new SAE (American) standard for glare-free headlights. The existing EU / UN-ECE legislation is completely different even though conceptually it sounds like the same thing.

If Ford doesn't do anything, they don't have risk. If they enable glare-free and it's found not to be compliant with FMVSS 108, that can trigger a safety recall and all the costs associated with one. Even if they wanted to enable glare-free and make some tweaks, it's not clear what that would entail and which vendors would have to do additional work. Unlike Tesla's architecture where the Autopilot computer is a high-compute-power general purpose computer with NPU acceleration, Ford's Mobileye based solution has a lot more fixed-purpose hardware that's not as flexible to be radically reprogrammed in software. Nor has Ford shown any desire to do this kind of dramatic rewrite, unlike Tesla which has rewritten the ADAS software stack 3 or so times since the hardware came out.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that Ford won't officially activate matrix headlights in the USA until a future hardware generation where a supplier sells Ford a complete out of the box solution that the supplier built and lobbied from ground up to be FMVSS 108 compliant. In the meantime, if you have a glare-free capable Ford, activating it via Forscan is low-risk and one of the biggest lighting-related upgrades you can do.

Interesing. But it still begs the question as to why Ford would put these headlights into the vehicles, with the extra costs associated with that, without a plan or intention to activate them?

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