Following my visits to lighting facilities in Korea, last week I went to Japan to check in with Koito and Nichia. Both companies impressed me.
At Koito I saw many new LED products launched these 6 last months, with incredibly fast progress in LED projectors from the first generation with 5 optical systems to the fourth generation with only one projector for low beam and one projector for high beam, giving better lighting performance and a huge decrease in energy consumption. They showed me a very new interesting new module, very elegant and simple.
Nichia impressed me with their road maps concerning LED and laser efficacy, brightness, and reliability portend a great change in lighting over the coming years.
When we see what and how these two companies are doing, we understand how they’ve put 2.4 million LED headlamps, with a combined total of 6.4 million LEDs, on the road with 0 ppm in warranty returns since the start of production; that’s quite a feat, and it shows enormous progress in reliability!
We are rapidly leaving behind the HID failure rates and the endless change of dead halogen bulbs. We should now consider that headlamps do not need any change of bulbs with the very positive consequence of packaging and access reduction. It is another argument against the old fashion halogen we have to change several times during the life of the car, each time with a cost between €5 and €100 per the survey unveiled last week. Onward and upward!
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief