The automotive industry has faced a revolution over the last 20 years, driven by innovation. New materials, light sources, and electronics have totally reshaped the business and our ecosystem. Mechanical engineers have been replaced gradually by electrical engineers – as described at the last DVN Munich event by Joerg Kaelble, head of lighting R&D at BMW – with over half his team now working on electronics, hardware, and software.
The revolution is not finished. New technologies are coming year by year to make impossible designs possible. Michael Krupa (Audi) clearly pushed our industry to innovate to make the Audi Concept C lamps feasible. BMW and Mercedes teams showcased their grille innovations made with lit chrome, films, and radar transparency.
Of all the kinds of innovation that go into advancing automotive technique, optical innovation is one of the most impressive, because it’s so visible.
Light sources: quantum-dot LEDs (Nobel Prize 2023) are coming into vehicle lights. I saw them on my visit to Moplat (Korea) in November, and Fraunhofer IAP presented a microLED display with super high luminance:
Polestar presented their super tiny charging lamp module with 11,000 microLEDs in a YFPO package just 3mm thick, embedded into a resin:
Edag presented their ‘lava’ lamp design concept made with Nichia’s blue LED chips and phosphor coating that can create infinite design solutions:
LG Innotek presented an interesting concept based on silicon resin to create 3D shapes like the Nexlide Cube (below, left) and Nexlide C+ using light-redirecting film to create 3D multi effects (below, right):
There’s e-ink from Refond, which can change colour when powered by a low current:
Lit grilles with chrome inert polycarbonate outer lens from Gerhardi:
Autofocus HD lenses including stepper motor to adjust projection with wall distance, from JHuaju:
Marelli have integrated smart sensors into lamps for door opening:
These are just a few examples of what I saw in Munich – no slight intended to companies not mentioned! These few examples serve to illustrate how innovative our ecosystem is, and how important it is for innovative tier-1 and -2 suppliers to collaborate with OEM engineers and designers to make our cars greater and greater.
A detailed report on the presentations from the latest DVN event in Munich will be released on March 3.
Sincerely yours,
