Looking to find out if you have Matrix Headlights, or what features they have? Or do you want to know if you can get them retrofitted? This article has you covered!
Matrix Headlight Features
Tesla’s new matrix headlights have quite a few cool features, some of which are available only in Europe, but some of which are also now available in North America!
The Adaptive headlights feature brighten and dim selective LEDs based upon both oncoming vehicles and vehicles ahead of you, helping to reduce headlight glare for other vehicles, while also providing the driver (or FSD!) with as much light as possible.
Matrix headlights will also follow curves in the road, delivering light to the direction that you steer in. This is a pretty impressive and useful feature, which helps to ensure that drivers can see where they’re going in the dark, even on winding roads.
For now, Europe has some additional features – with the ability to illuminate even further on highways than in North America. We’re not sure when or if this will come to North America – as it may be a legislative or policy issue with the NHTSA or its Canadian equivalent.
The final cool feature – Matrix headlights can display complex imagery or text in Lightshows! This one is neat for those who enjoy Tesla Lightshows – run any default Lightshow and T E S L A should show up if you’re parked up against a wall.
When Matrix Headlights were delivered
Tesla began to deliver Matrix headlights initially on the Model 3 and Model Y, starting in early 2022. However, due to the pandemic and parts issues, many late 2022 and early 2023 models still have projector headlights on most variants in the range. The Model S, since its refresh, has always shipped with Matrix headlights. On the other hand, the first Model X vehicles with Matrix headlights only shipped in June of 2023.
The updated 2024 Model 3 Highland also has support for Adaptive high beams.
At this point, nobody is quite sure whether the Cybertruck has shipped with Adaptive headlight support just yet. Of note is the fact that the 2024.20 adaptive headlight update does not include the Cybertruck in the list of effected vehicles in particular.
How to tell if you have Matrix Headlights
Determining if you have Matrix Headlights is pretty simple! Look at your headlights from in front, preferably when the vehicle is turned off. If you see a large, round projector lens like the image below, your vehicle has matrix headlights.
Matrix headlights have a circular dome projector on the outer edge.
Not a Tesla App
Matrix Headlight Retrofits
If you don’t have Matrix headlights, and do really want to have these features, there are a few ways to get them onto your vehicle. Based on an estimate received on June 03, 2024, the older reflector-to-matrix headlight retrofit is possible, but quite expensive unless you’re up for some DIY.
Tesla provided an estimate of approximately $1,500 per headlight on a Model Y (one left, one right), and a labour fee of approximately $550 USD. This quote was received in Canada, so there may be some differences based on your local service center. This price is also drastically higher for the Model S and Model X, according to the conversation had with Tesla Service.
On the flipside, they also mentioned that if you find the headlights yourselves, and do the installation on your own, they’ll enable the flag to turn on Adaptive Headlights. You may be able to find new or used Matrix headlights at part vendors or on auction sites, at your own risk.
But one note of caution – until this flag is enabled, your new headlights won’t work at all! They said they’d charge the equivalent of a service visit fee for this – approximately $50.
DIY Headlight Swap Overview
You can find Matrix headlights for the Model Y and Model 3 on auction sites for approximately $300-$400 USD each. The installation procedure is not the easiest, but it is something that a confident owner could swap out. We’d estimate this procedure would take an average user about 2 to 4 hours to do. You don’t need a second set of hands for this in particular, but they would speed up the process of realigning the front fascia and frunk compartment.
After that is a harder step – the front fascia. If you’ve got PPF on, this may be a even more complicated, as your front fascia PPF may also include the headlights. The fascia is held on with bolts and clips – you’ll want to carefully follow the Service Manual here.
After that, you remove one headlight at a time – disconnecting the electrical connector, and then removing the Torx bolts holding it in place.
When putting your new ones in, you’ll need to align the red alignment stud into the correct spot – a similar red alignment hole in the body of your vehicle. After that, reinstall the Torx bolts and electrical connections, and then put it all back together!
You’ll need to conduct a full vehicle Software Reinstall, another procedure available in the Service Menu. This will initialize the headlights, but they will not light up. You’ll need Tesla Service or a ToolBox3 subscription to enable the “Global” flag for headlights in your vehicle, disabling the “SAE” flag. Once that’s done, make sure to align your headlights!
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With Tesla’s first major expansion of the Robotaxi Geofence now complete and operational, they’ve been hard at work with validation in new locations - and some are quite the drive from the current Austin Geofence.
Validation fleet vehicles have been spotted operating in a wider perimeter around the city, from rural roads in the west end to the more complex area closer to the airport. Tesla mentioned during their earnings call that the Robotaxi has already completed 7,000 miles in Austin, and it will expand its area of operation to roughly 10 times what it is now. This lines up with the validation vehicles we’ve been tracking around Austin.
Based on the spread of the new sightings, the potential next geofence could cover a staggering 450 square miles - a tenfold increase from the current service area of roughly 42 square miles. You can check this out in our map below with the sightings we’re tracking.
If Tesla decides to expand into these new areas, it would represent a tenfold increase over their current geofence, matching Tesla’s statement. The new area would cover approximately 10% of the 4,500-square-mile Austin metropolitan area. If Tesla can offer Robotaxi services in that entire area, it would prove they can tackle just about any city in the United States.
From Urban Core to Rural Roads
The locations of the validation vehicles show a clear intent to move beyond the initial urban and suburban core and prepare the Robotaxi service for a much wider range of uses.
In the west, validation fleet vehicles have been spotted as far as Marble Falls - a much more rural environment that features different road types, higher speed limits, and potentially different challenges.
In the south, Tesla has been expanding towards Kyle, which is part of the growing Austin-San Antonio suburban corridor spanning Highway 35. San Antonio is only 80 miles (roughly a 90-minute drive) away, and could easily become part of the existing Robotaxi area if Tesla obtains regulatory approval there.
In the East, we haven’t spotted any new validation vehicles. This is likely because Tesla’s validation vehicles originate from Giga Texas, which is located East of Austin. We won’t really know if Tesla is expanding in this direction until they start pushing past Giga Texas and toward Houston.
Finally, there have been some validation vehicles spotted just North of the new expanded boundaries, meaning that Tesla isn’t done in that direction either. This direction consists of the largest suburban areas of Austin, which have so far not been serviced by any form of autonomous vehicle.
Rapid Scaling
This new, widespread validation effort confirms what we already know. Tesla is pushing for an intensive period of public data gathering and system testing in a new area, right before conducting geofence expansions. The sheer scale of this new validation zone tells us that Tesla isn’t taking this slowly - the next step is going to be a great leap instead, and they essentially confirmed this during this Q&A session on the recent call. The goal is clearly to bring the entire Austin Metropolitan area into the Robotaxi Network.
While the previous expansion showed off just how Tesla can scale the network, this new phase of validation testing is a demonstration of just how fast they can validate and expand their network. The move to validate across rural, suburban, and urban areas simultaneously shows their confidence in these new Robotaxi FSD builds.
Eventually, all these improvements from Robotaxi will make their way to customer FSD builds sometime in Q3 2025, so there is a lot to look forward to.
For years, the progress of Tesla’s FSD has been measured by smoother turns, better lane centering, and more confident unprotected left turns. But as the system matures, a new, more subtle form of intelligence is emerging - one that shifts its attention to the human nuances of navigating roads. A new video posted to X shows the most recent FSD build, V13.2.9, demonstrating this in a remarkable real-world scenario.
Toll Booth Magic
In the video, a Model Y running FSD pulls up to a toll booth and smoothly comes to a stop, allowing the driver to handle payment. The car waits patiently as the driver interacts with the attendant. Then, at the precise moment the toll booth operator finishes the transaction and says “Have a great day”, the vehicle starts moving, proceeding through the booth - all without any input from the driver.
If you notice, there’s no gate here at this toll booth. This interaction all happened naturally with FSD.
While the timing was perfect, the FSD wasn’t listening to the conversation for clues (maybe one day, with Grok?) The reality, as explained by Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI, is even more impressive.
It can see the transaction happening using the repeater & pillar cameras. Hence FSD proceeds on its own when the transaction is complete 😎
FSD is simply using the cameras on the side of the vehicle to watch the exchange between the driver and attendant. The neural network has been trained on enough data that it can visually recognize the conclusion of a transaction - the exchange of money or a card and the hands pulling away - and understands that this is the trigger to proceed.
The Bigger Picture
This capability is far more significant than just a simple party trick. FSD is gaining the ability to perceive and navigate a world built for humans in the most human-like fashion possible.
If FSD can learn what a completed toll transaction looks like, it’s an example of the countless other complex scenarios it’ll be able to handle in the future. This same visual understanding could be applied to navigating a fast-food drive-thru, interacting with a parking garage attendant, passing through a security checkpoint, or boarding a ferry or vehicle train — all things we thought that would come much later.
These human-focused interactions will eventually become even more useful, as FSD becomes ever more confident in responding to humans on the road, like when a police officer tells a vehicle to go a certain direction, or a construction worker flags you through a site. These are real-world events that happen every day, and it isn’t surprising to see FSD picking up on the subtleties and nuances of human interaction.
This isn’t a pre-programmed feature for a specific toll booth. It is an emergent capability of the end-to-end AI neural nets. By learning from millions of videos across billions of miles, FSD is beginning to build a true contextual understanding of the world. The best part - with a 10x context increase on its way, this understanding will grow rapidly and become far more powerful.
These small, subtle moments of intelligence are the necessary steps to a truly robust autonomous system that can handle the messy, unpredictable nature of human society.
