Patent ID: 7438456

Claim:
A vehicle headlight arranged to wrap around from a front towards a side of a vehicle, the vehicle headlight configured to selectively provide a low beam illumination and a high beam illumination and having an optical axis configured to extend along a traveling direction of the vehicle, the vehicle headlight comprising: a light source configured such that a main optical axis of the light source forms an angle of substantially 30° to substantially 60° with respect to the optical axis of the vehicle headlight, and the light source having a longitudinal axis that extends toward a front and first side of the vehicle headlight; a first reflector having an elliptic reflecting surface with a first focus and a second focus, at least a part of the first reflector being located closer to both the front and an opposite side of the vehicle headlight than is the light source so that an imaginary line that is tangential to a part of a horizontal profile curve of the elliptic reflecting surface is substantially parallel with the main optical axis of the light source, and the light source is located substantially at the first focus of the elliptic reflecting surface; a second reflector having a reflecting surface configured to collect light from the first reflector and to reflect the light from the first reflector towards the front of the vehicle headlight, the second reflector located closer to both the first side and a rear of the vehicle headlight than is the light source; and a distribution pattern switching unit configured to switch a distribution pattern of light projected from the second reflector between a low beam distribution pattern and a high beam distribution pattern, the distribution pattern switching unit located between the first reflector and the second reflector, wherein the elliptic reflecting surface of the first reflector and the reflecting surface of the second reflector are configured to provide a maximum output during low beam illumination, and the distribution pattern switching unit has a reflecting portion configured to reflect at least a low part of light that, during low beam illumination, is reflected from the first reflector and directed to a lower portion of the low beam distribution pattern, the reflecting portion configured to reflect the low part of light reflected from the first reflector towards a location above a horizontal level during high beam illumination.