We’ve all seen the Lexus equipped with LED low beams and the Audi R8 and A8 equipped with full LED headlamps. New premium cars equipped with full LED by Audi, Daimler and BMW will be unveiled in the next months, probably at the Paris Mondial motor show.
But it’s not only the premium car makers who are adopting LEDs for headlighting.
Japanese car makers are working very hard on LEDs across their ranges. The Nissan Leaf, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and the latest Toyota Prius prove it.
Generalists are also working hard on LEDs for DRL and turn signal functions, and also now for full front LEDs or at least for low beam. Think for example of concept cars presented at Frankfurt 2009 and Geneva 2010. See the concept cars to be presented at Paris 2010 and you will anticipate the new LED headlamps which will equip increasing numbers of new cars after 2015.
Too, domestic Chinese car makers and JV Chinese car makers are using LEDs as they promote their electric vehicles. LED headlamp pricing still greatly restrains market adoption rates, but the trend is launched.
Never before have so many new lighting technologies been developed simultaneously. We’ve got adaptive front lighting emphasising such new intelligent technology as high beam assistant, adaptive cutoff, marker light, glare-free high beam, and others. At the same time, set makers and light source makers are investing a lot of money in xenon 25W, in order to improve safety through better xenon take rate. The two major challenges ahead of us will be to achieve the development and to promote these new technologies with simple, easy to grasp and understandable marketing tools in front of car makers, dealers and car buyers via media, training and teaching.
Driving Vision News is here to help and support the lighting community. After a large report on LED front lighting technologies three months ago, we willl publish our two next reports, Xenon 25w at the end of June and adaptive technologies, end of July.
We wish you a happy summer holiday season—sit back with a cool drink and read DVN to keep up with the latest innovations, news and views from within the lighting and driver assistance industry!
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