The Tokyo Motor Show is just closing, and we’re bringing you the seven main takeaway points from the lighting perspective. This week’s newsletter presents first info on the event, and you can download our complete 2019 Tokyo Motor Show Report presenting the lighting on display by car makers and their suppliers. The main thing is that lighting is adapting to comport with the branch-out, or fork, in how vehicles will come to be used: shared mobility and pleasure-driving.
So as a first takeaway, two specific lighting use cases have to be studied and understood:
• Mobility: heavily city-centric. Lights will be used for seeing the road and the pedestrians and cyclists on it, just as today, and newly will be used for communicating with people and other vehicles and infrastructure. This set of usage modes seems to be the priority of the lighting makers, and I think what Japanese car makers and their suppliers showed at Tokyo will be soon used throughout the world. Lighting differentiation will be more important than ever.
• Driving for the sake of driving—not exclusively, but mainly outside of built-up areas, using the latest new technologies like glare-free high beam. Styling and high-tech lighting performance and appearance will figure prominently with this set of use cases..
A second important takeaway is to do with interior lighting. We have seen at Tokyo a lot of lighting innovation not related (or not directly related) to autonomous driving—especially interior lighting. We’ll explore those technologies in our DVN Report, and more in depth in the special report on interior lighting we will publish soon.
Don’t forget, the DVN Lidar Conference is coming up in less than a month! It’s to be held 2–3 December, with a very interesting program and VIP speakers from automakers and lidar and lighting suppliers. If you haven’t yet registered, write in or reserve your seat!
Sincerely yours,