Paris is (again) the capital for the automotive industry for this week. During the last 10 years, this show was really moribund, you went there and then, you get disappointed or even sad to see how the market is going down. This year is totally different with a lot of OEM with reveal. After the nice IAA in Munich, we can really say that Paris is Back
What to say about car design, car technology and then lamps?
In Beijing auto show last April, all the cars looked similar, and sometimes I had the feeling it was similar for lighting design. A front & rear light band, more crystal or diamond cut innerlens.
At Paris Auto show, a lot of Chinese OEM were participating (Li Auto, Changan, GAC, BYD, Geely, Dongfeng, Chery) but all the cars were already presented in China (excepted AVATR T09). Nothing new. The new things came from European OEM (and also Korea) with a lot of new cars and concepts, enough to see what is coming next as a design trend. There is a clear willingness from OEM to differentiate (and not copy the Chinese), and lighting is part of the differentiation
Is there a trend? Not really. Differentiation is for me the key takeaways.
Slimness, Uniqueness, Sculptural shape, Seamless integration, OEM branding with lighting are some alternatives OEM are using to build this differentiation.
It can be:
1/ Slimmer (even super slim)
2/ Sculptural shape
3/ Seamless integration
4/ Branding
Next week I will bring you a longer analysis about the trends. Next week is also GRE 95 in Geneva, and Eric Blusseau has prepared a summary of the discussions there (see here). Notably, the glare task force results will be presented, and it will be interesting to see the results of the discussion and what regulators want to do about it. At the same time, NHTSA has announced a rework of FMVSS 108 that mentions similar concerns.
