Just after VISION congress last month, I had the opportunity to drive the Audi A8, Xenon equipped, during a long travel. I was impressed by the intelligent light, high beam assistant with a nice shift from high beam to low beam and adaptive cut-off. It was for me a great pleasure to drive at night, although I found the Xenon light quality in itself equivalent to many other cars. Same for bending light (see comment on VISION report at www.drivingvisionnews.com)
Last week, I was invited by Uwe Kostanzer from Mercedes to drive the new CLS.
I really discovered what a good light is, what the world’s best light at the end 2010 is like:
– Light on the road:
In low beam and high beam, there is an addition of 3 great advantages: colour, homogeneity and high level of light on the road. If the 2 first advantages are already known for LED technology, the level of light from the left side to the right side of windshield is very surprising. There is not anymore need of more light anywhere.
– Intelligent lighting:
1) in the dynamic bending light only the hot spot is moving avoiding the impression of dancing light as current bending lights and the static bending light is a real complement of main low beam.
2) the adaptive cut-off follows regularly the lights of the opposite cars.
3) the most important is that the speed of the shift from low to high or high to low depends of the position of opposite cars. When cars are arriving from far, it is a pleasure to see such a smooth change.
We have really a fantastic light and I am impatient to drive with the Audi A7 which should have the same light. The CLS night drive convinced me that LED light can be better than Xenon.
A presentation of the product and night drive is done in this newsletter.