A couple of other offenders:

Saw a Merc today with a similar treatment. I do not enjoy them. But the VW ones are the worst.

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[–] 3 points 21 hours ago* (3 children)

Even worse, in Europe, on lower trims, this is the amber turn signal... And it's incandescent 🤢

Also, at least in Canada, all trims of the IONIQ 5 come with these horrid, abhorrent LED reflector head lights. They piss light everywhere while being dim and not lighting up cross walks. I rented a 2024 Ultimate trim and was always getting caught off guard with pedestrians crossing the street because it doesn't light the sides of the road. Straight up dangerous.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

    It’s been pretty amazing to watch, in my lifetime, car headlights regress from being basically a solved problem to… “simultaneously bright enough to dazzle oncoming drivers, but too dark to see pedestrians.” It’s almost impressive how badly we’ve managed to fuck this one up.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 child)

    It's ridiculous! 2010 to 2020, a lot of cars had projector halogen bulbs. Great! I had a set in my 2020 Elantra, I put high end Diode Dynamics LED bulbs in there and they were perfect. Not too bright, excellent cut off, excellent lateral visibility, good beam pattern.

    Every 2019-2020 Elantra (AD-PE) had these projectors on every trims. Newer Elantras now have reflector LEDs on all trims below Luxury. Like what the hell happened?

    And it's not like we just stopped developing projector technology either. My 2026 K4 Hatchback GT-Line Turbo Limited has projector LED beams with a notch cut out for the opposite lane of traffic to avoid glaring oncoming drivers, dedicated and automatic high beams (whether the implementation is good is debatable, I would have rather had soft dimming high beams to not make other drivers think I'm flashing them), yet every trim below uses an array of three projector LEDs on either side.

    IMO we just need to ban LEDs in reflector housings. I think that would solve part of the night glare issue. They're not even good for the drivers, they're dimmer than halogen!

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago

    It's very annoying. I used to enjoy driving at night quite a bit, but now I avoid it because other drivers' headlights give me eye strain 😅 I'm just like, who actually likes these things? Who is asking for them? Anecdotally, it feels like everyone I talk to hates them.

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