By Paul-Henri Matha, DVN COO and Lighting General Editor
2023 was a long year, with a lot of salient events in the vehicle lighting and vision world. We got off to a fine start in January with a combo CES + Paris DVN event, then the Tokyo DVN Workshop, ALE in China, a US Workshop in San Francisco for the first time, ISAL in Germany, DVN Shanghai…numerous events, each a big success. So it was a long journey of a year, including the first two in-person GTB meetings after the Covid shutdowns eased off, in Tallin and Torino.
Now it’s time to recharge our figurative batteries to get a running start at 2024’s docket! A fine time to look back and summarize 2023. For me, the highlights include:
- Display explosion in China. Interactive Signaling Display (ISD) is clearly the trend, and most new BEVs in China have this sort of lighting feature.
- Entry into force of 01-series amendments to UN Regulation 148 and 149 in January to permit lit logos and road projections, and some cars are already equipped (new VW Touareg shown here)
- Entry into force of 08-series amendments to UN Regulation 48 with mandatory rear position lamps by day below 7,000 lux ambient light, a requirement strongly pushed by northern European countries which will help cut down on vehicles invisible from the rear in darkness.
- Approval in GRE in October of 09-series amendments to R48, which will—after decades of delay—finally require mandatory automatic levelling for all passenger cars in the near future (new types in September 2027; all types in September 2030).
- Confirmation from lighting community that US-spec ADB is feasible, just a question of time.
- VW Touareg and Porsche Cayenne with microLED HD matrix technology from Hella/Nichia and Marelli/Osram.
I am convinced that 2024 will also be a prolific year for the lighting industry. My predictions:
- First US-spec vehicle equipped with ADB
- GRE approval for signaling road projection (SRP) in Europe
- New GB (Chinese reg) for RID and LSD with possibilities to have lit logos, road projection, signaling projections
- New C-NCAP rating with higher importance of ADB to get the 5-star score
