Last month, Audi‘s Wolfgang Huhn and Michel Hamm invited me for a site visit. Three items were on the agenda: a look at Audi’s future light tunnel, presentation of Audi’s latest headlamps, and night drives of the TT, A7, and R8 LMX.
Audi’s new light tunnel
I visited the light tunnel with Wolfgang Huhn, Michael Hamm, and Herbert Woyke. Huhn and Hamm are household names in the lighting community—Woyke is lesser known, but no less talented; I worked often with him at Valeo, and now he is in charge of lighting development in China for Audi.
It was a great pleasure to spend time with these three friends, discussing our favorite topic.
| L-R: Hamm, Huhn, Fratty |  Examining a piece of road |
The light tunnel is still under construction, and safety measures such as high-conspicuity vests, hard hats, and special shoes are required to visit it. I am impressed by the potential of this darkroom. It’s 12 metres wide by a full 120 metres long. The road surface is specially coated to give an optimal representation of actual roads, there’s capacity to drive in three lanes, and large areas for stocking materials and products. There are means of lighting and provisions for ADAS measurements and experimentation, and there’s a turntable to analyse whole cars equipped with new headlamps and rear lamps. The tunnel will be finished in July, as part of the 4 th floor totally dedicated to Huhn’s department. What a great privilege it was to visit these facilities.