This past January, we held a DVN Workshop in North America for the first time. After Stuttgart in 2009 and Paris in 2010 and 2011, the 2012 DVN workshop was held in Rochester, near Detroit, a wonderful location, during the North American International Auto Show. The event was a smashing success, well attended by 125 experts from all sectors of the lighting and driver assistance community. There were researchers, practitioners, automakers, tier-1 and -2 suppliers, consultants, regulators, and academics. In a very active and full day, we had lectures and presentations, round-table panel discussions, display booths, and a great deal of high-level discussion and exchange of ideas. The report, i n more than 100 pages, presents the salient points.
In the first chapter, we précis lectures from such experts as ValeoSylvania’s Jerry Dittrich and John Orisich, Osram-Sylvania’s D. Hulick, D. Vanderhaeghen from Philips, Audi’s Wolfgang Huhn, Visteon’s Rainer Neumann, Mike Larsen from GM, Mahendra Dassanayake of Ford, AL’s Ernst Olaf Rosenhahn, Michael Flannagan from UMTRI, and RPI-LRC’s John Bullough.
The second chapter presents the four round-table panel discussions, including presentations of panel chairmen Ingolf Schneider (Opel) , Kamislav Fadel (AL), Thorsten Warwel (Ford), and Dennis Novack (Chrysler):
• LEDs: Limiting factors and main challenges in US market
• Will LED lighting really save energy?
• Does LED Intelligent Lighting improve safety?
• How LED can contribute to make lighting more attractive?
Moreover, profiles of 25 T1 and T2 lighting companies present at the workshop are presented with contact information for their experts and managers and a guide to how lighting fits into their strategy. At the end, the author presents pictures of the main players of car makers and Tier 1 & 2 lighting suppliers talking together at the DVN workshop.
The inexorable march towards LED will have implications for all market participants, requiring alignment of products, engineering skills, and capacities.
How and when these new LED technologies will impact the US automotive market was the central question which has been discussed among automotive lighting players during our DVN January 2012 Workshop. The main conclusions are in this report. What will be the next workshop? We are working hard at DVN on it and I am proud to announce the next workshop will occur this year in a new continent. Watch for more information in the coming weeks .
Sincerely yours
DVN General Editor