Audi, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, are one of the auto industry’s longest-established companies. Headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany, they specialise in premium cars; they made 1.8 million of them in 2019. Audis are exquisite cars—attractive, sophisticated, and technically advanced. Their success stems from creativity, commitment and enthusiasm. The wishes and emotions of their customers drive Audi’s innovation-forward approach to realising the brand’s motto of “Vorsprung durch Technik” (Progress through technology).
Audi have deliberately positioned themselves as leaders in lighting, and—unusually for an automaker—top executive management is involved in lighting, which is an important focal point in Audi’s short-, mid-, and long-term strategic planning.
A full Chapter is dedicated to the R&D organisation of Audi’s lighting team, management of the department, of front and rear lighting development, projects, od creative lighting designs, and the facilities, inluding the LAZ famous light tunnel, where the magic happens.
Audi’s main lighting innovations are described, including digitalisation which allows interaction with surroundings; dynamic turn signals; HD matrix headlighting technology with DMD; OLED rear lamps which look amazing and open the door to V2X communication; welcome and farewell dancing-light displays, the new strategy wherein Audi owners can pay for additional lighting functions to be activated by software even after having purchased their car, and more.
We present interviews with Audi lighting chiefs Wolfgang Huhn and Stephan Berlitz, as well as an interview done at the Audi TechTalk Light event early in December 2020.
A chapter is also dedicated to interior lighting, with the megatrends to support future use cases, and another to feedback of Audi suppliers and partners.
We describe the individual vehicles in Audi’s model range, with a detailed scrutiny of front, rear, and interior lighting on each model, with the confirmation of the lighting strategy: No halogen in any new Audi models except A1 in Entry model, e-Tron, the first Audi model with matrix in Entry model and with DMD in option, A5 to A8 and Q7-Q8 use Matrix in Entry model.
And the last chapter covers ADAS developed by Audi, as well.
Audi Lighting & ADAS report
