By Hector Fratty, Editor in Chief
Driving Vision News officially launched on 1 April 2008—about five years ago.
In the beginning I launched the website just for fun, to stay connected with my friends with whom I had enjoyed working over my years and decades at Valeo. I felt relaxed and for me it was a dream: no stress from OEMs, from my colleagues, from my team, from my boss.
Gradually the number of DVN members increased and I found myself at the centre of a real going concern. So, what are the results after these five years?
– 272 newsletters, each and every week without interruption.
– A searchable, fully-indexed archive with thousands of pieces of news and analysis on lighting, driver assistance and also general information about OEMs, Tiers 1&2, universities, regulations, and technologies; certainly this must be the world’s best and most up-to-date such compendium on automotive lighting’s current events. This data bank was built thanks to you, my lighting friends who send me the news of your company or the technology you are working on, but also thanks to a DVN team getting more focused year upon year.
– 68 reports covering company profiles, lighting and DA technologies, regulations, congresses, auto shows, lighting development/production, with all the kinds of information you need and want.
But what I am really most proud of is the workshops. I remember the first one in Stuttgart:
We were 20 people from car makers, lighting suppliers Tier 1&2, institutes, regulations, mostly the people who helped me at the beginning. The interest of this first workshop was to talk together on the future of lighting technologies. But at the end of the day, I understood it was a meeting the experts and managers needed.