Auto high beams

[Hugo A Go Go]

I could have sworn there was a thread about this, but I can’t see it now.

On Friday I drove in the dark for the first time since getting my S5. At first I thought the auto high beams were working quite well.

But it all went wrong when I was approaching a sharpish bend in the road.

I could see an HGV approaching the bend in the other direction. But because it wasn’t coming at me straight on, and there was high hedges, the car didn’t see it and switched to high beams just as the HGV came round the bend. I didn’t have time to react and the HGV driver flashed me and blasted his horn in anger.

I’ve now disabled auto high beams in the convenience menu.

 

[Loada]

I had the same experience - it's just too sluggish/dumb to be practical.

Another sort of related thing is that the manual high-beam (like you'd do to "thank" someone) seems slow, it doesn't feel like you can do a quick flash, despite me moving the stalk quickly, it gives the other car a good face full, annoying at night.

 

[Alb]

It's one of those features that is firmly under the heading of "Gimmick". Switched it off on day one and have no plans to change that.

 

[nem]

Yeah this is sadly just useless. I have the exact same experience, it works ok on straights, but as soon as there is a turn or something else, it fails miserably.
Kinda like all other cars...

Even the prismatic headlights on some cars are rather bad. Dont get me started on Tesla headlights being too high...

 

[5teep]

Not experienced it on the S5 yet but it's worked well on other cars. Thing is if you have it on but don't rely on it i.e. keep an eye on the road for oncoming vehcs you won't be let down when it falls over.

 

[Hugo A Go Go]

Not experienced it on the S5 yet but it's worked well on other cars. Thing is if you have it on but don't rely on it i.e. keep an eye on the road for oncoming vehcs you won't be let down when it falls over.

It’s not terrible, it does actually work most of the time. You’ve just got to be aware of the limitations of it - looking around bends mainly.

It’s the same as most things that require any car to look ahead. They only seem to look in a straight line.

My previous car (Ioniq 5) also had similar shortcomings. There is a particular urban road I drive on most days where there is a slight bend and there is usually loads of parked cars. Every day the car thought I was heading straight for the cars parked just after the bend and triggered the collision detection. At least I don’t have that problem in the S5

 

[tsedge]

I do mine manually, switched auto off when I first got the car. These technologies are immature - it isn't a bad idea but they need to work at least as well as doing it manually. Unfortunately we've had a raft if immature driver-assist systems pushed on us by the safety bodies, well meant but not backed up with proper testing and data.