- Rivian has utilized for a patent to warmth the headlight lens to make winter driving safer.
- The patent drawings present a resistive outer factor utilizing carbon nanotubes to warmth the lens.
- There are at the moment no manufacturing automobiles with heated headlight lenses.
Each winter, Rivian house owners take to the boards and Reddit to complain about ice buildup on their vans’ headlights that drastically reduces effectiveness. LEDs don’t emit sufficient warmth to soften snow and ice, so it stays on the lens till you scrape it off. In some circumstances it’s a must to do that each few miles. Rivian has an answer for that drawback, although: heated headlight lenses.
Rivian filed a patent for heated headlight lenses in June 2023. The patent was made public in December final 12 months. The doc exhibits that Rivian is contemplating including a heating factor that sends warmth throughout the whole lens due to embedded carbon nanotubes. This answer was chosen in order to not impede mild going by the lens. Conventional digital defrosters—just like the one you most likely have in your rear window—layer heating components in opaque traces, barely reducing visibility.
Photograph by: USPTO
You should purchase aftermarket headlights with a heating perform, however they’re often spherical, making them onerous to combine with most trendy, angular housings. We don’t think about Rivian house owners could be keen to combine an extra set of headlights, although, they usually need those on the truck to stay efficient in all climate circumstances.
Rivian might have solved the issue the old school manner by putting in heated nozzles to spray the headlight clear, however the heated lenses look like a extra elegant answer. Utilizing conventional resistive heating components embedded within the lens could be a extra easy, cheaper answer, so it will likely be attention-grabbing to see what Rivian really places into manufacturing.
The issue isn’t restricted to Rivian, although. All new vehicles with LED headlights undergo from comparable points, in addition to fogging on the within of the headlights that doesn’t go away. Halogen or xenon lights run a lot hotter, so when you depart them on lengthy sufficient, they’ll start to soften snow and ice on the outside and remove condensation inside.
LEDs are the go-to alternative for many trendy vehicles as a result of they use significantly much less electrical energy than different kinds of lighting, emit simply as a lot mild and provides producers extra management over the place the sunshine goes and the way it’s dispersed. For electrical automobiles, the massive draw is LEDs’ decrease electrical energy consumption, which doesn’t considerably have an effect on vary.
The patent drawings submitted by Rivian to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace uncovered by Motor Authority present a headlight with the everyday Rivian design, so it’s unclear if it’s meant for an R1, R2 or R3. If it places this in a manufacturing automobile, it will likely be the second producer to supply this in a collection mannequin, though rivals will seemingly catch up. We all know no automobiles with factory-fitted heated headlights, however you will get aftermarket Oculus projector headlights with heated lenses for the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator. Let’s hope they’re obtainable quickly on one other set of boxy, off-road merchandise.
