As a DVN community member, you might have attended one of our LED-centred technology workshops in Europe (France, May 2011) and America (Michigan, January 2012). Even if you haven’t attended, you’ve had front-row seats via the weekly Driving Vision News updates and in-depth reports, so you will have seen how successfully these events bring dynamic participation from all sectors of our world including automakers, lighting suppliers, academics, regulators, technical standards writers, and other practitioners.
Building on the growing popularity of our workshops, and following on the terrific success of our first workshop in America, we’re thrilled to announce that the next one will be held in Tokyo this summer – not only as an expression of solidarity with our Japanese colleagues one year after the most unfortunate events in Japan last Spring and Summer but also because it’s the logical next step in the progression and evolution of DVN workshops. The Japanese market leads in the introduction of new lighting technology. The take rate of HID headlamps is higher in Japan than anywhere else. In this fertile ground for productive discussion about car lighting trends, opportunities, and challenges, we will invite Japanese and international automakers and Tier-1 and -2 lighting suppliers to an exceptional exchange of ideas and experience in LED technology and technique. The arrival of LEDs first in rear lamps, then in the DRL, and now in the headlamps, means we can now create day-and-night car brand and technology signatures with light, enhancing the novelty and the high tech image of vehicles.
As we know, and as we clearly saw at the American workshop this past January, each geographic area has its specificities in end-user attraction and regulatory attitudes towards new technologies. This Japanese DVN workshop will mesh with the increasingly clear need for a collective approach to overcome the obstacles slowing down the adoption of LED car lights on a larger scale: local regulations, lack of standardisation in LED light sources, no precise forecast of quantities and costs, unsatisfying reliability of LED lighting systems (electronics, thermics, materials), evolving lighting performance, weight, and energy savings.
Watch this space; very soon we will announce the timeframe and docket for this exceptional event so you can save the dates and plan to attend.
Sincerely yours
DVN General Editor