I had a wonderful time visiting the Audi Museum; taking in the presentation on future technologies in Audi’s light tunnel; night-driving the new A8 and Q8 e-tron, and talking with Stephan Berlitz, Audi’s head of lighting development. Foremost in my mind as I recall this day is Audi’s new lighting paradigm.
For context: before, we were in a time when optical innovations were the main driver of lighting innovation and evolution. Then came the dawn of Xenon and AFS: electronics meant lighting was now a system. We achieved at that time great strides in the quality and safety performance from car lights.
Now with LEDs and their huge possibilities, we are entering a time when we want to do more than improve lighting performance. We want to create emotion in the driver and to personalise the vehicle.
Call it the influx of marketing into the lighting sphere, joining safety and design focus already in progress. While safety remains the most important development aspect, future car lights will be able to give more than light for directly seeing and being seen. Lights are now used to improve personalisation, and as a channel for communication and interaction.
I warmly thank Stephan Berlitz and his team for the time spent with Wolfgang Huhn and me, and I congratulate all the team for their involvement and enthusiasm working in this wonderful area.
Last and not least, I discovered in the museum a lot of wonderful products unveiled during a century. Engineers worked a lot to develop and make them. These products deserve to be shown to the lighting world at large, and to a broader audience of people who love lighting. Why don’t we have our own museum, a museum of lighting?
Sincerely yours,