Headlights - Automatic / Manual Mode Switching - undocumented "feature"

[Zoidz]

This is mostly a post to describe a feature of the headlights that is not documented in the manual. Perhaps this is common knowledge but I have not seen it discussed here so this is somewhat of a PSA for those who don't know. A few months after I got my R1S, I noticed that my high beams were locked on, but I wasn't sure how it got in that mode since I had been using AUTO mode since day 1. I live in a rural area and sometimes the AUTO mode is too aggressive in switching to low beams and I need to flick the headlights at another car or White Tail Wood Rats (aka deer), so I use the stalk on limited occasions to force on the high beams. After playing around over the next few days, I realized that you can lock the low or high beams on from the left stalk and it disables AUTO mode.

If you have AUTO mode on (A is displayed in the headlight icon) AND the high beams have automatically been turned off, pushing the stalk forward will turn on the high beams AND turn off AUTO mode, which is not necessarily intuitive. Similarly, the low beams can be locked on as well.

Hopefully this post helps someone understand an undocumented "feature".

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[CBRacerX]

Yeah I found this “by accident “ but now understand it and it works well. Auto is almost always best until slow speeds where it gos with low beams..

 

[COdogman]

I knew that pushing the stalk forward would turn the high beams on but I didn’t know it turned AUTO off entirely. So thanks!

 

[Rivian_Hugh_III]

I was in a funeral procession and needed to turn on my headlights. The ovals are daytime so that was fine, but can we force the lightbar to turn ON during the day?

 

[godfodder0901]

I was in a funeral procession and needed to turn on my headlights. The ovals are daytime so that was fine, but can we force the lightbar to turn ON during the day?

Light bar is always on unless you turn the lights off completely.

 

[Dark-Fx]

This behavior is definitely documented. Of course Rivian has multiple sections on the Automatic High Beams in the manual, so it's not immediately easy to find, since the table of contents leads you to the other section.

 

[R1Tom]

I find it interesting Rivian doesn't automatically turn on the headlights when in Auto mode....when the wipers are on. I believe all of my last several vehicles with automatic headlights and wipers would automatically coordinate between the two for that function.

 

[Zoidz]

This behavior is definitely documented. Of course Rivian has multiple sections on the Automatic High Beams in the manual, so it's not immediately easy to find, since the table of contents leads you to the other section.

Damn, I intentionally looked at the manual just before I made the post and did not see this section.... ?

 

[bigsky]

Thank you for the post.
I myself noticed this, that while set to Auto, pulling of the high-beam stalk toggles Auto high beams on and off. Found it annoying. It might be the same for wipers.
I always have set-up-and-forget everything I can to Auto on my cars, headlights, high beams, wipers.

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I found this, and found it annoying, as well. Was driving around for a couple days before I wondered "why aren't my auto high beams coming on anymore?" Had to go through the settings and turn them back on. ??

 

[cjbot3000]

Does anyone else find the auto high beam logic lacking?

I have to manually control it with the stalk in the end, anyway, because it's so poor - waiting too long to turn off high beams, does not do well with curvy roads when following a car and blinding them randomly...

 

[KBabione]

@Zoidz - Thank you for this thread...

I remembered it last night driving home in wicked fog and was surprised that the auto high beams turned on even when I had "max" fog lights on (front and rear). It seems to me that if you have your fog lights on you probably don't ever want your high beams on, but I pushed the left stalk forward and returned to low beams (turning off auto).

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