It was an intense week in Japan with a lot of visits, contact and discussion about automotive market. Nine million vehicles were made in Japan last year, making that country the world’s № 3 producer, and even though the market declined a bit last year, it is still consistently one of the hubs of the auto industry, with significant history in lighting innovation and development. The invention of the blue LED which made the white LED practical and garnered a Nobel Prize for Dr. Nakamura, the first LED low beam on a Lexus in 2007, the prime LED maker (Nichia) and vehicle lighting supplier (Koito), and the world’s top automaker (Toyota), just to name a few.
Even with a difficult market, even with tough competition in China and South Asia, even with newly contrived difficulties like the U.S. tariffs, the Tokyo DVN Workshop was a grand success. There were 330 attendees, around 60 automaker participants, 27 exhibitors, great interest from Chinese, Indian, American, and European companies…it was the biggest lighting event DVN have ever put on in Japan. For the matter of that, it was the biggest vehicle lighting event anyone has ever put on in Japan. Most Japanese stakeholders in lighting regulation participated to the event: MLIT, JASIC, JAMA, JAPIA, NTSEL, and more, with the Japanese GRE representative.
In today’s DVNewsletter we bring you a summary of the event with my major takeaways, Wolfgang Huhn’s summary of the regulation panel discussion, and two interesting news pieces about the lighting on new Lexus and Nissan vehicles.
Find videos of the technical sessions here and a summary of the exhibition here.
In an excellent keynote speech, Nissan’s Yasukazu Kanda reviewed Nissan’s lighting history with a lot of innovation and world firsts. Japan has something special with car lights, for sure!
Big thanks to all who came and made the Tokyo DVN event such a terrific one — and to all who couldn’t make it, but are reading about it now. I especially thank Eiichi Ono for his great support and full dedication to make this event happen. I tried also to speak a bit in Japanese for the first time, a great moment for me!
Thank you to all Japanese community who joined the event, the success is also yours.
