Germany will propose new text to clarify lit logo provisions in UN R48 during the 92nd GRE meeting, to occur later this month.
The goal of the proposal is to clarify that logos may be lit only for signalling functions; lit logos as part of AFS will not be allowed any longer in the new text. This possibility was a bit more flexible to avoid the 75-mm rule to go to the 400-mm AFS maximum distance between two lit areas, and was also a possibility to avoid the limitation of three housing units for a given signaling unit.
In the proposal, Germany proposes also to disregard lit logos which are not identifiable at a 10-metre distance. In case of doubt, the character height shall be not more than 12 mm, which would serve to allow the example in the picture above—it would not need to be certified as a lit logo. That, in turn, would mean this vehicle could also have a central rear lit logo, despite the limit of 1 centered or 2 lateral logos at rear and at front.
However, Germany’s proposal does not resolve the requirement in UN R148 about how to calculate the size of the logo with respect to the 100-cm2 lit area size, as defined in paragraph 4.5.5:
Size: the enclosed light emitting surface of the logo (incorporating transparent and non-transparent components of the logo) of such a lamp in the direction of the reference axis shall not exceed 100 cm2
This question is relevant for a lot of automakers who want to light their logos. Shall we consider only the letters, a quadrilateral shape for each letter, or the rectangle shape of all the letters together? Different interpretations exist today—just like in America with the EPLLA requirement but no defined test for it—and that makes life complicated.
