By Hector Fratty, DVN Editor in Chief
I was in Ingolstadt last week to visit Audi’s new Light Assistance Centre (LAZ, in German) and to attend some presentations in three booths Audi organised for the inauguration of this new lighting facility. I was happy and honoured visit with Dr Schleuter, Dr Huhn’s former boss, and with his new boss Ricky Hudi. Audi engineers work particularly closely with the designers with input from the automaker’s motorsport activities.
The light tunnel itself is 120 metres long, 15 m wide, and 5 m tall. Its floor has the same surface as real roads, allowing the possibility to drive on it and assess general performance, visibility, glare, and also homogeneity of a wide variety of car lights.
At the end of the tunnel, a turntable allows a car on it to be rotated through 360° to see its lights from any and all viewing angles.
Expo booths on æsthetics, dynamics, and interaction were set up Inside the tunnel to present Audi’s concepts for all lighting technologies that Audi are developing. Their design takes a central role in realising Audi’s “Vorsprung durch Technik” motto, and emphasises the brand’s core values of progress, high quality, and sportiness. Audi consider the vehicle as light in motion, creating dynamic new forms of expression. The light interacts extensively with driver and the environment.