Hi, all,
I recently bought a 2018 CX-5 and one of the exciting features I understand it to have are the 'suite' of adaptive headlight features...at least they're shown on the original window sticker. But just in the last couple days, I'm reading how adaptive headlights are not legal in the US due to some 1960s law having to do with prohibiting a headlight system from running high- and low-beams at the same time. The multitude of articles I'm reading, all dated within the last few days, note that with Biden's Infrastructure Bill, adaptive headlights will likely (at some point in the near future) become legal. So my question is this: If they weren't legal in 2018, how can my 2018 CX-5 have them as a feature? Does anyone else here have a CX-5 and know for sure their car has the feature? Thanks!

 

Also confused about this since our 2018 CX-5 does have adaptive headlights. I assume we have a "version" of adaptive headlights that is street-legal, otherwise it would have not been approved for the US market.

 

Adaptive headlights can mean different things. The ones being made legal now are the ones that adjust the lighting beam when it senses oncoming traffic to avoid blinding oncoming drivers, but keeps things bright where the oncoming traffic isn't so you don't run into that deer or that jogger on the side of the road.

Mazda's adaptive headlights change the direction of the beam as the steering wheel is turned in order to light up where you are going instead of just directly ahead of the vehicle. This has been legal for some time.

Back in the 60's and 70's, even Mazda's adaptive headlights would have been illegal here as would have been LED's, halogen and xenon. The law then required that the headlight be a sealed device and fixed in its position on the vehicle. When I was stationed in Germany in the early 70's, I had a sergeant working for me who had a high level Citroen, but he couldn't bring it back because the headlights worked on a similar basis to Mazda's. Laws usually eventually catch up to technology, but it often takes a long time.

 

Thanks to both Mazda_nc-dude and schmieg! That helps to explain my confusion. I'm disappointed that the incredible Mazda and other videos that show what the full suite is capable of aren't available on my car. I wonder if there's any chance the missing features are built-in and can be activated by a software update or something similar when the law catches up with technology. Sad that government dictate can hold back progress that is so functional and beneficial to our safety and convenience.