Automotive headlamps have been around since the late 1880s, so you’d think automakers would have had time to get them right. But new cars and trucks continue to fare poorly in evaluations by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The latest segment tested by the insurance-industry-backed group is mid-size SUVs. Only two of the 37 vehicles tested received a Good rating: the 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe and the 2017 Volvo XC60. Another 12 SUVs were rated Acceptable, while the headlights of the remaining 23 were judged Marginal or Poor.
The main things IIHS engineers looked at was how far the headlights cast their light both on straightaways and around curves and also whether their low-beams produced glare for other motorists. The Volvo XC60’s optional curve-adaptive, high-intensity-discharge headlights scored the top rating. But consumers need to buy an Advanced or Active Dual Xenon package to get those top-rated headlights.
Among the Poor-performing headlights were those found on the 2017 Kia Sorento and the 2017 Ford Edge. The Sorento’s curve-adaptive, HID low-beams did not project light far enough on straightaways or on curves, IIHS said. On the right side of a straightaway, the Sorento’s low-beams illuminate 148 feet, compared with 315 feet for the XC60, for example.
The Ford Edge’s HID low-beams did not provide enough visibility, either, and they also produced too much glare, IIHS reports. The Edge was not alone. There were 79 headlight variants tested among the 37 SUVs, and more than half gave off too much glare. In 17 of these cases, the headlights were deemed Poor based solely on their unacceptable amount of glare alone.
“Managing glare can be more challenging for taller vehicles like SUVs and pickups because their headlights are mounted higher than on cars,” IIHS senior research engineer Matt Brumbelow said in a release. “Better aim at the factory can minimize glare.”
As bad as they were, mid-size SUVs fared better than some of their high-riding peers. “As a group, mid-size SUV headlights perform slightly better than the other SUVs and pickups we evaluated last year, and that’s encouraging,” Brumbelow said. “Still, we continue to see headlights that compromise safety because they only provide a short view down the road at night.”
- IIHS: Pickup-Truck Headlights Are Terrible (Except One Model’s)
- IIHS Says Many Small SUVs Have Lousy Headlights
- IIHS Headlight Tests Find Many Cars in the Dark
IIHS is incorporating headlight ratings into its 2017 overall crash ratings, and it won’t give a vehicle a Top Safety Pick+ rating unless it scores at least a mid-level Acceptable grade in the headlight category. New pressure is coming from the feds, too: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) plans to adopt similar headlight ratings when it redoes its crash tests for the 2019 model year.
Here are the latest ratings:
