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A Rivian Fender Bender Cost $42,000. Its CEO Says That Should Never Happen
(www.thedrive.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Audi made these adaptive light strips to fix the artificial problem of newer headlights being too bright compared to older ones.
Meanwhile, only 30 years ago when we had sealed-beams in standardized shapes, you could replace a headlight for like $10. And the lens was actually glass instead of plastic prone to yellowing and abrasion.
Yeah and if you hit someone that glass shatters and stabs them. The plastic is shatter resistant.
Did you know shatter resistant glass exists? Like your windshield for example. The issue is plastic is cheap and easy to manufacture and nothing else.
Tempered glass is very hard to mold into a complex shape. Those plastic headlights shrouds are much cheaper to replace, it's the internals that are expensive.
Also that plastic you can just polish and they're like new.
Windshield are actually a composite of two glass layers and an inner plastic layer.
Those lights were absolute garbage though and the vehicles that used them got half the gas mileage compared to new ones due to their blocky shape and lack of aerodynamics.
Somehow, people could still see in the dark.
And the ones who couldn't see crashed.
Just don't drive if you can't see adequately. Fuck.
Funny considering the argument here is that these lights are too expensive to replace after something like a crash, yet your argument is that we should use headlights that make it much harder to see at night which just leads to more crashes.
Well the core of my argument is that people shouldn't drive if they can't see well and I'd rather solve that by having far fewer drivers than with brighter lights.
Never a good argument. We could transport goods with horses too. Never needed that fancy cart wheel.
My Miata with pop-up sealed beams gets ~30 MPG. Any aerodynamic problems it has are due to being a convertible, not the headlights.
Aerodynamic headlights should never ever cost $6k under any circumstances.
Greedy corporate executives ran out of ideas to grow their revenue so we have to deal with absurdity inflated prices.
Most dont cost $6k just these ones because they're adaptive lights
They're also only 6k in the US because y'all pay extra for everything German and somehow also get worse reliability.
New matrix LED headlight for A6 C8 from Hella is 1700 EUR. Used one from a wrecker could be as low as 300. Parts catalog also shows individual LEDs for repairs.
Toyota Avalon 2011 headlight housing (which usually gets damaged) with auto leveling costs $150 each from the dealer ship. I still run the factory blasts and leveling motor and I just replace HID bulbs for ~$180 every 5 years or so.
Compare it with 2022 Toyota Avalon with unserviceable headlights without auto leveling which cost ~$2000
So a fender bender would cost $10k easy just for a pair of headlights and a bumper.
Here they are for $470 each with a CAPA certification for body shop repairs:
OEM parts are always going to be ridiculously priced because the OEM has a monopoly on OEM parts. Your 2011 headlamp assembly also has removable bulbs while the newer Avalon uses built-in LED lights with all the circuitry to drive them.
They burned out and needed to be replaced. New ones should never burn out
You say that as if saving $10 on a bulb once every few years is worth the risk of spending $100s or apparently even $1000s if they get damaged.
There are reasons cars have been getting ever more unaffordable (above and beyond inflation), and stuff like bespoke model-specific headlights requiring complicated tooling to manufacture is one of them.
Cost wise, no it’s not worth it.
But you now have an item that
The adaptive headlights in my car are truly amazing, and every time I’m blinded by oNcoming headlight glare I wish everyone had them
They’re nice until you need to replace them.
Unfortunately that's the fifth owner's problem so nobody really considers it
I might support this point of view if the last 20 years of lifespan promises with new light bulb technology had actually been true.
Brighter is a negative trait in my opinion.
I partly agree, headlights are causing harm by blinding other drivers. But adaptive headlights seem to work. Brighter should only be allowed with adaptive headlights
I can drive through a busy area with “high beams” on but watch dark spots move to keep other cars in the dark
I live in a very hilly area, adaptive headlights do exactly fuck-all.
True, you can never entirely take human responsibility out of the loop. And humans suck
Even when there scenarios adaptive headlight don’t cover, they’re much better overall than human
Well, AUDI owners are insufferable douchenozzles so I don't have much sympathy.
So... put LEDs in the same form factor. Now you have lights that don't burn out and can be repaired. You can even use PWM to dim them.
Same form factor is the problem: LEDs need a different beam pattern with a sharp cutoff, otherwise they’re harming other drivers.
But adaptive headlights are even better. They seem to work really well and I’m a huge fan. I have really bright LED headlights so I can see everything but I can also watch them change to keep other cars in a dark spot so I don’t blind them.
The combination of super bright LEDs with adaptive headlights seem like a huge safety improvement for us all
Same form factor doesn't mean same reflectors. It just needs to fit into the same space. You can fit LEDs into that space.
You could, but capitalism … most cars do not get aftermarket reflectors, no one would pay the significant cost, and LEDs fit into standard reflectors. There’s a whole bunch of failure here
We're talking about the sealed headlights with the reflectors contained in them. LED versions have their own reflectors that could be (and I assume are) tuned to work correctly with LEDs.
I don’t think I’ve seen those since before my teenagers were born.
A few weeks ago I showed my younger kid how to replace headlights on his old car
The problem is you can find led replacements that fit the same base “for offroad use”
When to be legal, to not cause glare problems, someone would need to re-engineer the assembly and people would need to be willing to spend that kind of money
Yeah, it's that kind that produce disastrous results. Returning to sealed-beam lamps would solve that issue and make replacement much easier as well, but that would remove a profit opportunity for manufacturers, so it won't happen voluntarily.
By "artificial problem" you mean the problem that they created... Right?
... Right?
I thought we all agreed there is a problem with headlights these days? Is it just not because of LEDs specifically?
It's because they're made brighter and cooler than they need to be, basically. There's no reason they couldn't be less of either. We have Christmas tree bulbs made of LEDs that accurately mimic the old fashioned ones after all.
Oh so you mean it’s an “artificial problem” as in they are “solving” a problem they created themselves. Not that there isn’t actually a problem.