I Have To Hand It To Tesla For Making One Of The Biggest Taillight Innovations In Recent Times

This has been a busy, rough week, and the constant grim grayness of the world hasn’t exactly been a help, so to unwind after work the other day, I went to a relatively new taillight bar in town, The Vermilionaire’s Lamp. It’s been pretty popular lately in the Taillight Community, mostly because everyone is getting sick of going to The Lumiére Rouge, and Flashing Amber’s was closed down again because they found a previously-thought-to-be-extinct strain of diphtheria in the communal bidet. When I showed up the other night, it was quite busy, and there was a bit of a commotion, as a group of Tesla acolytes was in the bar, surrounded by regulars.

Now, it’s not uncommon for Tesla fanatics to show up at a taillight bar; they always travel in pairs, and they’re just there to share the Good News about The Great Elon and his many teachings and predictions. Usually, they just get ignored and eventually leave or get kicked out by the bouncer when they keep insisting that people get in their Cybertruck and try out the latest version of FSD with them while they make reels talking about how many times it saved their lives by not driving into walls or whatever. This time, though, was different.

This time, they were actually there on real taillight business. The taillight community generally hasn’t been too interested in Tesla, as it’s never really given the community anything to be excited about. That all changed last year, though, when Tesla’s long-needed facelift for the Model Y was released. This update, known in Tesla circles as the “Model Y Juniper” was overall a pretty mild styling refresh, with one significant exception: it employs a new taillight design that features something that, I believe, no actual taillight has ever used before.

Here, take a look:

Model Y had a glow up

The first indirect reflective body-panel taillight of its kind pic.twitter.com/rTUvUIZK8J

— Tesla (@Tesla) January 30, 2025

Do you see what’s going on there? It’s not the full-width taillight business that deserves attention here, we’ve seen that since the 1960s. But it does have to do with how that full-width taillight bar is illuminated. The central bar there is acting as the baseline running light section of the taillight; the turn indicators, brake lights, and so on are in C-shaped units at either side, and are more conventional.

What’s interesting about this taillight is that it is the only known taillight where you are not seeing the taillight at all. The taillight assembly itself – the LEDs, the lens, the housing, everything – is actually hidden up under a lip on the rear deck. What is actually visible is only the light from the taillight, reflected on a little concave surface there.

Also, it’s worth noting that a by-product of this method is that a sort of puddle light-type swath of glowing redness appears on the ground behind the car, like some sort of mystical, angry rash.

Here’s a shot from underneath so you can see where the actual physical taillight is:

See that? All you actually see when you’re behind the car (and not, you know, rolling around on the road) is the reflected light. This should be perfectly legal as long as that reflected light meets all the size, color, and photometry requirements as specified in FMVSS Standard No. 108, which I must assume these do, since they’re on a production car that’s actively being sold.

While the application in a taillight context is new, the concept has been around for a while; I think the only other known attempt to use reflected light as the primary visible light of a vehicle signal light was as the side indicator repeater lamp of the 2003-2008 BMW Z4 (E85/E86):

Here, the flashing amber light was coming from behind the BMW roundel, through a ring-like lens on the side of the lamp housing, so that only the emitted light was seen, reflected in the dish-like bezel of the indicator repeater. It had a starburst-like look thanks to the fluting of the lens, and was a pretty exciting and dramatic way to repeat a turn indicator. It’s one of my favorite details of that car.

And, of course, license plate lamps have always sort of worked like this, though their intent is different: they cast light to illuminate an unlit object, the license plate, where the Tesla reflected taillight’s light is designed to be viewed directly. It’s not illuminating anything other than itself, via that recessed channel spanning the rear of the car.

So, don’t let anyone tell you that I’ve never said anything nice about Tesla, because I’m saying it now: Tesla has made a genuine splash in the taillight world, and I salute the bold and experimental approach to the exquisite and ancient art of rear-of-car illumination.

Top graphic image: Tesla