Two great events are on the September calendar in and around Frankfurt am Main in Germany: IAA, the Frankfurt motor show opened last week, and ISAL, the International Symposium on Automotive Lighting to be held 23-25 September.
My two press days at IAA give me two keywords to retain: creativity and realism.
Creativity with dream cars such as Audi’s Quattro, Opel’s Monza, Porsche’s 918 Spyder and a few others…also many innovations in the ADAS realm. It’s looking more and more like partially autonomous cars are are very close to production. The other keyword is realism with many very interesting concept cars evidently close to production—probably in about a year. In lighting we have now the confirmation that the HID light systems are disappearing from new-vehicle designs. New production cars are still equipped with HID but all the concept cars—even those close to production—are equipped with LED. In the concept cars, several headlamps are not yet feasible because of their very small size, but we can easily imagine it will be possible soon. And laser headlamps are coming, too!
Clearly we are in a revolution of lighting, and the ISAL congress will show us the latest benchmarks, findings, and achievements. I follow the preparation of ISAL attending the Steering Committee and I am convinced we’ll have a wonderful congress with record of number of attendees and exciting lectures. See you there!
Nota: I Hear You
Last week’s in-depth report on a new type of turn signal brought immediate feedback upset with some of what we said and a biased position we appeared to take. We understand and agree with your objections. After many years of developing innovative lighting for the world’s automobiles, it is my natural tendency to celebrate innovations from the engineer’s perspective. In my enthusiastic fascination with the attractive new lights, I lost track of important scientific and political realities that needed to temper the language in the article. No disruption or complication was intended to the delicate multipartite discussions and negotiations ongoing in the matter, which we hope will resolve as smoothly and quickly as can be.
We are sincerely humbled by the community’s steady and growing faith in DVN from all sectors of the driver vision and driver assistance fields. Without you, there can be no DVN, and I pledge we will work to continue honouring and building your trust. In this week’s in-depth article, General Editor Daniel Stern propounds the principles upon which DVN strives to base our reportage. We thank you for your understanding, and—as always—we are listening. Please never hesitate to let us know what you think of how we’re doing.
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief