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The DVN Event at Pune was our return to India after nine years. It was the culmination of eight months’ diligent work to renew my contact I had when I was responsible for Dacia lighting development in Romania, including development for Renault in India, and to activate our local DVN network there.
The event was really fantastic with more than 450 people—the biggest lighting event ever held in India. During the last three months I was in contact with a lot of stakeholders to be able to release the report we published in July about the lighting market there. Even so, I did not sufficiently realize the importance of lighting performance and technology for Indians.
Road safety is the No 1 topical priority in India now. You must have good headlight performance, and you can get it much more easily with LEDs.
Sustainability is No 2, because pollution is a real problem in India. Among the 50 biggest cities in the world, 40 of the most polluted ones are in India. Reduced power
consumption and increased sustainability are not just nice-to-have wish material there, but absolute musts. That is one reason why DRLs are not mandatory in India for passenger cars, because it would increase power consumption—though this goes against that safety priority, so as you can see, there are tricky balances to achieve.
Design is No 3; really important in India. They like slim lamps and welcome/farewell animations. Despite strong local focus on (low) cost, customers want technology—even on motorbikes and 3-wheelers—and nothing advertises a car’s technology like its lighting. I see fertile ground and heavy interest for European and Asian technology to gain traction fast in India. Good thing that with LEDs, we can have high performance and low power consumption, with resultant low CO2 emissions—though of course it is also possible to have high-power, therefore high-emitting LED systems.
The pic at the top of this editorial is a TVS 3-wheeler. Scroll back up and take a closer look— see the LED headlamps and signals!
Sincerely yours,
