ADB is finally legal in the United States! Even though NHTSA’s rule is disappointing and puzzling in many ways—see this week’s in-depth—we can still celebrate that ADB, at least in name, is finally authorised in the USA. An important SAE visio conference will be held this Thursday and DVN will communicate on it at the next newsletter.
IHS-Markit foresee around 36 million cars equipped with ADB in 2026, and we could consider that half of the worldwide production in the next 5-6 years will be equipped with ADB. The most important information presented in the IHS-Markit report is the proliferation of ADB into lower-priced vehicle segments for European and Japanese automakers. So ADB, the greatest innovation in lighting, is going to have a great future, and as a logical next step we ought to look at building a basis for mandatory ADB if we can prove that the function decreases the number of fatalities in driving at night. For our part, we at DVN are working to quantify the safety benefits of ADB with LAB, an accidentology laboratory whose mission is to improve road safety.
But the main questions today for automakers and suppliers as they decide whether, when, and how much to invest are: what kind of ADB systems to improve safety with the best cost-efficacy? How many segments in the beam to improve safety at an affordable cost? How many pixels—tens, hundreds, thousands…millions?
With the priority on EV and AV, with the priority of software and communication, with lit grilles and other new light functions around the car, there is not enough money left to have everything we want, all the time. Automakers want to optimise their lighting spend, and suppliers have to help and guide them in making prudent decisions along that line. This is the main challenge for automakers and suppliers alike. The DVN team are involved in this challenge with our lighting experts, Wolfgang Huhn, Gerd Bahnmüller, Jean-Paul Ravier, Ralf Schäfer, Hector Fratty, and more experts both now and in the future. We’re in it for the long haul, and we’re glad you’re here with us.
Sincerely yours