Dear colleagues,
Over the past week, I’ve received many reactions to my editorial, “Xenon lights are better, but still rare!”
– Several mails came in from OEM Tier 2 and 3 suppliers. They all say year after year they’ve offered price reductions, working now with negative margins.
– Other mails are from OEM Tier 1s. They all have the same assertion about their price reduction on the systems and their negative margins, and are frustrated not see price reduction of the Xenon option to the end user. I share this point of view because until just a few years ago, I was a player in these offers and I suffered margins decreasing year after year, offer after offer.
– Two car makers also reacted, claiming that their pricing policies on Xenon systems were similar to other optional equipements.
As far as Xenon option is concerned, we are convinced that we are following a deadly trend: killing suppliers Tier 1, 2, and 3 without helping car makers because the take rate will not increase and might even decrease in the future with the consequence of decreasing safety as several serious studies demonstrate.
The unique solution is to reduce the price of the system to the end user in order to increase the take rate. It requires a deep understanding between the different players both on their mutual interests and on their responsibility on safety
I ask you to continue to react.
Please keep your ideas and perspectives coming. Let’s organize with LSS (LightSightSafety) a workshop among all the players to work on cost reduction of the Xenon system and also to prepare for the arrival of new LED technology — none of us wants to see low and slow adoption of LED as happened with HID, so we must each and all work hard to achieve a rapid and widespread adoption as happened when halogen replaced plain tungsten.
Sincerely yours