This week, we release our DVN report on the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this past January. One hundred and fifty-five big colour pictures give a you-are-there look at the novel lamps and reflectors in configurations unique to the American market. Newly stoked passion for lighting amongst American makers is driving lighting equipment specifications and performance potential to new highs—a big change for a market where, for decades, lighting was regarded as boring commodity equipment like lug nuts. In 2011 and 2012 it was exciting to see lighting technology better than minimum requirements on a significant number of American cars. That’s true this year more than ever, and now we see big strides in design and style to go along with the advancing technology and technique. There are plenty of “First” milestones described and depicted in the report: first BiXenon and BiHalogen projectors and LED front turn signals and rear lamps on American trucks, first “Jewel Eye” headlamp, first split-field side mirror and LED headlamps available on a truly mainstream American-market car…you’ll want to take some time for this year’s DVN show-and-tell of the NAIAS.
The report is narrowly focused on vision systems on cars; you’ll find scarcely any pictures of entire cars in the whole batch. That kind of photo is available everywhere. What you can only get in this DVN report is close-cropped clear photos of the lights , specially processed to show maximum detail of interest to Driving Vision News community members. Most of the photos show production cars now or soon on sale, but many of them show concept cars. The lighting systems on these, too, are evolving visibly. And another big, fast evolution—or perhaps revolution—is taking place in the field of Chinese cars; those on display at NAIAS showed unprecedented high achievement in materials and build quality, design, style, and technical content.
All of this is wondrous to see, and gratifying for those of us who work to advance the state of the art and science of driver vision systems. This report details the result of many long man- and woman-hours of research and development, making things better this time than last time, and picturing new ways to employ and improve on vehicle lighting.
This report brings that picture—those pictures—to you. We hope you find it as interesting to read as we did to write!
Sincerely yours,
Daniel Stern
General Editor