Good Headlights Will Cost You Extra
Photo: Steve Johnson
It’s been a couple of years since the quest for good headlights began after the IIHS released its report back in 2016, which said that the majority of headlights were terrible. Has anything changed since then?
A new IIHS report this year says that headlight technology has improved over the last few years since it started rating them. The bad news is that you have to pay extra for headlamps that achieve a good or acceptable rating. The good headlights usually come in packages and higher trims that can add as much as $10,000 to the price of some of the most affordable new cars. Yikes!
That’s a lot of extra money for something as necessary and basic as good headlights. Only two 2018 models passed the test with a good rating on all trim levels: the Lexus NX and Genesis G90.
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The NX isn’t an outlier, either. Toyota and its luxury brand, Lexus, dominate the other car companies with more 2018 models that rate “good” or “acceptable” across the board. Some of the other brands even had to change their models partway through the year to achieve passing scores.
At the very least, more models are offering better headlights than they did back in 2016, where only two out of 95 models earned a good rating. For this past year, 32 of 165 models have a good rating for their best-available headlights. Trucks still tend to have the worst headlights, though.
We’re moving in the right direction, but for something as essential and longstanding as headlights, there’s still a way to go. More brands should make acceptable headlights a standard on all trims, like the Lexus NX.
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Not everyone believes that headlamps have gotten better. Many agree that brighter lights are safer for the driver, but they blind other drivers at the same time. The IIHS takes glare into account when testing vehicles, but that will only help so much.
Engineers have been working on a system that can dynamically light the road where it’s darkest while and dimming select spots like oncoming cars, but it hasn’t been implemented yet. Change is slow when it comes to headlights, but we hope those changes arrive sooner rather than later.
News Source: IIHS.org
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