“People search better safety and comfort. Xenon is a great lever to improve them but the price paid by the user is still too high”
Hans Schwabe, CEO of Osram’s Speciality Lighting, which is a combination of Automotive Lighting and Display/Optic, studied electrotechnics and business administration at Munich university. He started at corporate headquarters of Siemens in Munich 1987, in the Strategic Planning Department. In 1991 he took over the product management of automotive light sources for headlights (Halogen, Xenon). In 1998 he moved to the BU Display/Optic keeping various senior management positions within R&D, Application Engineering and Sales & Marketing. In 2002 he was nominated as Managing Director for OSRAM Taiwan until 2005. In 2005 he resumed responsibility as CEO of Display/Optic. After merging Display/Optic and Automotive Lighting into Specialty Lighting in January 2009, he was nominated as CEO of this new business unit.
DVN: Hello, Hans. Thanks for talking with us. In automotive lighting, experts are talking about new technologies but filament bulbs are still very important to the automotive industry despite these fast-moving new technologies. How do you analyze that we still use several filament bulbs developed 50 years ago?
H.S.: Several reasons explain it:
– It is a proven concept, bulbs like H4 or H7 are simple, easy to use, and cost-efficient. With less than €1, we have a bulb with accurate filament position, low and high beam, and efficacies of > 15lm/W.
– Much progress has been made in quality (better production tolerances thanks to new optical measurements with 5-axis adjustment) and in productivity, year after year.
– A consequent extension of product range and performance features is mandatory to keep that position with regard to growing AFS functionalities.