SIA—Societé des Ingénieurs de l’Automobile, the French Society of Automotive Engineers—asked me to write an editorial for the September issue of the SIA magazine. I sought to highlight the great achievements of OE lighting suppliers, which deserve to be better known not only amongst the SIA readership, but also throughout the DVN community. Herewith, then, that editorial translated into English (you’ll find the original French here, under the heading Le Billet d’Humeur):
The development by the manufacturers of electric or autonomous vehicles is regularly on the front page of the newspapers but behind that there are the OEM suppliers who do an admirable job, innovating day after day, model after model.
For example, in a sector I know well—lighting—two revolutions in the last decade are changing its industry. Just 10 years ago, the advent of LEDs completely changed vehicle styling, improved performance and reduced energy consumption. Their start was on the high end and then the general manufacturers followed, especially PSA and Renault with the Peugeot 308 and Clio. More recently, the arrival of non-dazzling headlights, they also started on Premium Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and they are now in the design offices of equipment manufacturers to equip the vehicles of more general manufacturers in the next 2 years.
What is happening in lighting and ADAS, is also happening in the sectors of wipers, seats, mirrors, dashboards, air conditioning, and other equipment under development. So let’s salute all our tier-1 and tier-2 OEM suppliers who are doing an admirable job that deserves greater consideration from everyone.
VISION is at the heart of these essential lighting and ADAS innovations
The SIA VISION congress highlights both new lighting technologies and ADAS, as well as those men and women in the shadows who are major players in automotive innovation. New LEDs, glare-free headlamps, new lighting, signage adapted to autonomous vehicles, evolutions of cameras, lidars, radars etc will be presented on October 9 and 10 at the Cité des Sciences in around 33 lectures, a round table gathering international leaders and experts, and night tests of 25 demo-cars equipped with the latest technology
I also remind you of the DVN lidar conference coming up in Frankfurt on 20 November—there’s more information in this week’s Driving Vision News.
Sincerely yours
DVN President