By Hector Fratty, DVN Editor in Chief
Last week I was invited to BMW by Christian Amann, in charge of lighting and wiping engineering, and Stefan Weber, project manager of laser systems, for a night drive around Munich. I’m very honoured to have been the first non-BMW person to try out the laser headlamps on the road! I assessed two headlamp setups: The one for the i8 to be launched at the end of next year, and an enhanced setup which is to be launched later.
i8 lighting
These headlamps were fitted in a 5-Series demonstrator car. The laser module will be slightly different to the module shown at ISAL but the specifics are top secret at this time. Only the picture below, hiding the headlamps, was authorised:
Christian Aman (left) and
Stefan Weber
There will be two versions in the future i8:
• Basic version with LED in low and high beam. The car will be fully LED-lit in all functions, front and rear. Some AFS features on this headlamp setup include “city light” for wide, low-glare seeing, and motorway light (low beam boosted and raised) when vehicle speed exceeds 110 km/h.
• Upgrade version, with all the features of the basic version plus the laser beam is added to the LED high beam to increase the seeing range.
Enhanced future system
The future version of the system adds ADB functionality and comprises several additional lighting modes to be launched in a later series also in higher volume than the initial application in the i8.
Details of my impressions during the night drive will be in a forthcoming newsletter. For now, I emphasize the two main points I retain: