I remember the harsh discussions I had with Bernard Gauvin, President of WP29. Every time he started the meeting, he would criticise the lighting organisations about the number of regulations linked to automotive lighting: “You are killing us and also killing the credibility of lighting regulation with your endless changes or additions!”
I remember, too, when regulations for headlamp LEDs were launched, I agitated in favour of the 1000-lumen minimum source flux for low beams, and in favour of automatic leveling devices despite their cost. Why? Because I was eager to avoid bad lighting and increased glare from new LED headlamps, to keep a good image of LED lighting in the long run. On these 2 points our side partly won: we have now a great image of LED, good performance, and no extra glare despite very white colour. The recent paper published by German auto news magazine AutoZeitung shows it very well—see the excerpt in this week’s News.
But we have not a coherent position about levelling, because automatic aiming is mandatory for Xenon 35w and LEDs, while only manual aiming is mandatory for halogen and Xenon 25w. Glare is much more depending on the aiming and much less depending on the type of light source. So, why still this difference in regulations?
Now some discussions are starting about the possibility to decrease the 1000-Lm LED threshold or to present a new approach to define the photometric requirements.
Why this change, why again modify the regulation? We are now able to have a good light with these thousand lumens. Decreasing to 600 lumens allow the saving of trivial money and 8w of power in the car, in comparison with the 100-watt savings by switching from halogen to LED. Is 8w really significant for a car, even an EV car? Is it so significant and important that to attain it we degrade headlamp performance (or constrain its improvement?
I am not anymore in the regulation meetings and I am not totally aware of the process of the change of 1,000-lumen requirement, but my suggestion is:
– No degradation of LED light performance.
– No change in regulation.
But, focus our efforts:
– to achieve the same regulation for all light sources. Automatic levelling mandatory for all light sources or not mandatory for all light sources.
– on a larger use of LED communication on reduced wattage, whiter colour, better light and styling differentiation even if it costs a little more.
– for some countries as India, some derogations should be considered to facilitate the arrival of LED.
To achieve this LED technology expansion, the lighting community has to work harder and harder to compete with halogen cost instead of going the easy way of discontenting.
Sincerely yours
DVN General Editor