The ZKW Group, with its 6,000 employees, had a turnover in 2015 of €728m. The supplier presently employ 2,600 people in Austria, with over 160 of these in the electronics plant in Wiener Neustadt. Overall, the ZKW Group develop and produce lighting systems at their eight locations: Wieselburg and Wiener Neustadt in Austria; Slovakia, Czechia, China, India, Mexico, and the United States. CEO Oliver Schubert expects to increase sales by about 25% to about €916m this fiscal year; by the end of 2016 the total number of employees is set to rise to 7,150.
Analysis: New BMW 5-Series FCL
In the 5-Series front combination lamp are all the technologies developed in the 7-Series, with ADB using mechanical shadow masks with vertical cutoff lines—even the reflectors are the same. The main visual distinction from the 7-Series comes from the direction indicators. These have five LEDs which use the same milky (diffuse) material, but with with a different shape. Just ahead of the outboard edge of the headlamp, there’s a cornering light with three LEDs.
The low beam is realised with two projection modules positioned in the middle of the light icons. One module produces the foreground and spread light while the other generates the kinked cutoff line and the hot spot. The Adaptive Driving Beam function is based on a mechanically-swivelled reflector system in the lower chamber of the outboard low beam optic. Half of the composite beam is provided by the left headlamp and half by the right one. By swiveling both reflector systems, an adjustable shadow is obtained for ADB. Below the inner low beam lens there is an additional LED reflector to generate the full high beam.