The first LED headlamp was installed in the Lexus LS600hL only 6 years ago. That headlamp with its LED low beam was an enormous breakthrough, a really solid start even with its four light sources and complicated compound optics, its large volume and its heavy mass, and its beam performance lower than HID. By and by, in 2009 came a second generation with two projectors and a reflector, and the third generation arrived in 2011 with two projectors. In this week’s interview, Koito’s VP R&D Director Yukio Yokoya talks with us about the fourth generation of this headlamp family to be released this year with a single module producing better-than-HID lighting performance.
Take a moment to consider this astounding progress made in only 6 years, with 15 models produced and 2.2 million LED headlamps produced by Koito alone! Nobody in the lighting industry could have predicted such great and rapid success—it is simply unprecedented. Think about it: most of us remember the state of the art and market prevalence of HID headlamps in 1998, six years after their introduction. It was nothing like this. And much the same is true of 1968, six years after the halogen headlamp was introduced (and 11 years before it would make its way to the United States!).
No, we’ve never seen such dizzyingly fast evolution in headlighting as we’re seeing now with LEDs, intelligent lighting, and associated technologies and techniques. Considering the great progress in lighting over the last 10 years, the main question OEMs must ponder is what lighting systems will look like in the next 10 years. Right now the three most active development vectors are LED, ADB, and laser-based headlamps. Let’s have a quick thought about how these lines might play out:
• LED: if we extrapolate the fast evolution, light sources with higher lighting performance (and we need it) will be common and affordable.
• ADB: driver demand will steadily increase, so will ask more and more this function which will be used in more and more cars
• Laser-based headlamps: progress will probably be relatively slow in terms of available intensity and performance.
But these are today’s predictions, and—again—who in 2003 could have predicted today’s reality? Of course, ten years ago there was no DVN heavily involved in facilitating community discussion of these questions. We humbly thank you for your votes of confidence in the form of near-100% membership renewal rates.
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief