It’s a newsy week in the world of vehicle lighting.
At this month’s GRE meetings in Geneva, a plan was adopted to dramatically simplify the UN regulations, in what surely must be the most important structural change in the UN lighting regulations since the dawn of GRE 39 years ago. GTB President Geoff Draper describes the plan and its big, important implications this week.
And we also present in this newsletter a report concerning the technology developped by Daimler, Hella, and Lear—the next major innovation on the scale of LEDs in 2007 and matrix beams in 2013. The multi-row “digital” light in 2016 to custom-tailor the beam pattern precisely to match the road, traffic, and ambient conditions dynamically—without the use of mechanical actuators. The new Mercedes E-Class headlamp marks the first commercialisation of this third breakthrough; its new module has 84 LED chips.
Having received feedback concerning the IIHS report, we at DVN shall soon take an initiative to gather and tabulate expert opinions on what contributes to good headlighting and what technologies we have to develop to really improve lighting for drivers.
Big news about the DVN Tokyo Workshop: It’s alreadu fully booked! I look forward to seeing many of you there. Unfortunately, we have had to close registration for the Workshop. A whole month before the event, we’ve got 210 attendees signed up from more than 60 companies including 15 set makers. For safety and security reasons, we can’t accommodate more. Of course, we’ll be publishing a full report for those unable to attend.
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief