By Wolfgang Huhn
I’m sure the entire DVN lighting community knows the key data and about the world premieres of the concept and production cars at the recently concluded IAA Munich Auto Show. Rather than reiterating information you’ve already seen on LinkedIn, in car magazines, or in newspapers, I will share my personal impressions and facts about the lighting-related exhibitors I visited in Munich last week.
In my opinion, Mercedes, Cupra, and BMW had the best booths at the no-entrance-fee ‘open space’ location downtown around Odeonsplatz. There, I experienced the classic auto show atmosphere, where the products take center stage amidst a flurry of showmanship.
Audi had a booth dedicated to one single concept car, the Concept C, which is the first result of the new head of design, Massimo Frascella. It was all about clarity.
BMW’s booth clearly focused on the first car of the ‘Neue Klasse’, the iX3. Mercedes showed off their large and impressive product range. Cupra focused on the world premiere of their Tindaya concept car.
Along the 1.5-km stretch of Ludwigstrasse car makers, some suppliers, bicycle companies and electric motorbikes were located. Brands like VW, Renault, BYD, and Bosch were close to the central space, while brands like Kia and Leapmotor were far away. The part of the IAA on Ludwigstrasse gave me no auto show feeling at all, it was more like a street festival.
The B2B portion of the auto show – entrance fee was €160 per day – took place at Messe München, a 20-minute subway ride away from Odeonsplatz. Six large halls were filled with suppliers, tech companies, and car manufacturers, including many Chinese car manufacturers such as Avatr, Xpeng, and Huawei Aito, the latter of which is not yet available in Germany.
I visited the booths of most of the lighting and lighting-related companies in the DVN community.
Inova
The first was Inova Semiconductors, in the shared booth of PGUB. The key message was that ILAS is now going into mass production with its first application in the new BMW iX3. Several other SOPs are expected by the end of the year. ISELED 2.0 is now fully functional and will premiere at the ISELED conference in October. DVN will be present and will keep you updated.
Al-Kor
The next very interesting one was the Turkish rear lamp, small lamp and logo projector maker Al-Kor. Sales manager Gülnihal Caner and optical design manager Ali Dönmetz introduced their state-of-the-art products.
Robosense
Robosense was located directly beside the Al-Kor booth, and my old friend (formerly Hella China now Robosense) Hongqin Zhou introduced me to Robosense CEO and founder Mark Qiu, with whom we talked about the future size (small) and optimal location (roof) of their lidar systems.
Xyte
The next stop was the Xyte booth, which featured a new electric three-wheeler (class L5e), designed for city driving and commuting at speeds up to 100 km/h. No helmet is required, and a car license is all you need. Founder and CEO Wolfgang Ziebart was formerly the head of EE at BMW, and later the CTO. He was also the CEO at Infineon and Conti. The electronic system of the vehicle was developed by Axel Deicke, and the design was done by Eric Goplen. They were my bosses and designer during my time at BMW in the 1990s.
Valeo
The Valeo booth was crowded the entire time, and I had to wait to get in; it was by invitation only. I had to wait for Ola Källenius, the Mercedes CEO, to come out. The fascinating displays inside will be unveiled to the public in October at a Valeo press event. DVN is invited and will report as soon as allowed.
Picture center :, Robin Hofner
Picture right : Wolfgang Huhn with his former Audi boss Ricky Hudi & Valeo CTO Christophe Le Ligne
Robin Hofner presented the new miniLED HD digital signalling display with Ennostar LEDs for e.g. V2X communication. The luminance, contrast, and precision are stunning.
Kurz
Another great booth was the one of Kurz. Kurz showed their surface technologies with unexpected innovations like a completely new touch display, films for headlamp applications or non-mirroring surfaces for dashboard-display as well as 3D spatial effects on flat plastic surfaces. Wow!
Moplat
Moplat, from Seoul, Korea, showcased their LitQ product. Theirs was one of about 20 smaller companies’ booths surrounding the large Hyundai booth. It’s a nice concept that enables smaller companies to participate in expensive motor shows.
LitQ is a high-brightness, pixelated OLED alternative with self-emitting QD-LEDs and a very high contrast ratio. Mass production is expected to begin in late 2027. It will also be available as a transparent lighting display with a potentially huge number of applications for interior and exterior car lighting.
A2MAC1
DVN’s friends from A2MAC1 were also present in Munich with a nice booth where they showed their benchmarking and concept analysis skills.
PGUB
The Electronica Automotive Conference (eAC) was hosted by Messe München and organized by PGUB. It took place at the IAA venue. Four sessions plus a keynote session filled the Wednesday. Chairman and organizer Peter Gresch introduced two presentations on vehicle lighting. In the Keynote session Christian Amsel, ZKW’s new CTO, discussed future AI-supported scene lighting, which optimizes light distribution for humans and machines. He began with ZKW’s current Volvo XC90 headlamp and offered a glimpse into the future of AI-based scene lighting. This was an excellent start to his new role as a leading decision maker in vehicle lighting.
Stephan Berlitz, the head of Audi lighting and vision systems, was the second speaker on the topic of lighting. He was placed into the Electrification, ADAS/Autonomous Driving, and Semiconductor Value Chain session. He presented the Audi digital lighting strategy and described the influence of the new head of Audi design on lighting. The new Audi lights will be reduced in height to approximately 35 mm, yet they will still have all the advanced technical features that customers expect from Audi.
On Thursday, the last event of the IAA took place on the main stage of Hall A2. It was a round-table discussion with two leading keynote speakers, one of whom was DVN’s Wolfgang Huhn, who spoke about “Regulations and Safety Improvements in Automotive Lighting.”
