Two US Experts' 10-Year Preview of American Lighting

On behalf of Driving Vision News, industry veteran Jean-Paul Charret met with two of North America's greatest vehicle lighting experts: John Bullough from the Lighting Research Center at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Michael Flannagan from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. Flannagan and Bullough have collaboratively presented excellent lectures at DVN Workshops, and we are pleased to bring you their forecast of what's to be expected in American lighting systems over the next decade's time:

Bullough (left) and Flannagan at the 2013 US DVN Workshop

- On Halogen light sources
John Bullough : Halogen should go down in terms of take rate to around 50% for new vehicles in the next 10 years in North America, but a substantial amount should remain due to simplicity and low cost.
Michael Flannagan : My estimate is around 40% of headlamps will still be halogen in 2023 because LED will grow very quickly, especially with ADB types of functionality which have great potential.

- On HID light sources
J.B.: There is still some negative image for HID in the USA. HID probably will not grow much over where it is today, and probably will start decreasing to nearly zero by 2020. 25W doesn ' t really seem to be an interesting option in the USA as leveling and cleaning systems are not mandatory.
M.F.: In ten years, the new-car take rate for HID will probably be 0%

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