The first great automotive event of September in Germany—IAA, the Frankfurt motor show—is now behind us. In this week’s DVN, you’ll find interviews with Audi’s Wolfgang Huhn, Opel’s Ingolf Schneider, and Varroc’s Rainer Neumann.
From this year’s IAA we retain interesting messages:
In front lighting:
• HID headlamps are no longer present on concept cars—even those close to production. Most of the exhibited concept car headlamps would be impossible to design with HID or Halogen; LED or laser is the only way.
• DRL styling continues to be used as a strong lever for design identity and brand signature.
• Light source areas are becoming smaller with either an appearance of jewels, with nontraditional shapes, and “blocky” appearances, or using small reflectors
• Some OEMs are moving towards brand-specific designs as Audi and now Porsche; some others are defining standard modules as Mercedes-Benz with the latest new LED models, BMW with their 2 standards (former and new 7 Series) and probably some generalists such as Ford and Peugeot.
In rear lighting:
• Rear lights are totally focused on styling appearance and designers seek to give special aspects like theater scenes and strong brand-identity signatures.
• Light bars with a perfect homogeneity are more and more used in the concept cars, perhaps portending OLEDs.
• 3D/ depth effects are a strong new direction for rear lights.
• Homogeneously-lit surfaces (forecasting OLEDs again?) are increasingly used rather than dotty light sources.
• Sequential turn signals such as those on Audi’s A8 are found on several other-brand show cars close to production.
We also retain the ADAS coming with more and more systems to build towards the driveless cars and also to help lighting functions.
Now comes ISAL! As this goes live, around 700 attendees are gathered to hear the great lectures and to network. The speakers are presenting the tomorrow’s lighting, confirming or not what we have seen on show and concept cars.
Like I wrote last week, we are in a revolution of lighting, and this year’s ISAL congress will show us just how far we’ve come…and where we are headed. See you there!
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief