By Wolfgang Huhn
The huge ALE (officially, the 21st Auto Lamp Industry Development Technical Forum and Shanghai International Auto Lamp Exhibition) took place at the Kunshan Expo Center near Shanghai from 25 to 27 March, 2026. The night before the official opening, around 60 VIPs were invited to a reception aboard a ship on the Pu River.
ALE Conference
Mr. Zhu Xuefeng, Shanghai M&G Enterprise Management, delivered the opening speech at the ALE Congress, followed by speeches from leaders of the Chinese and international lighting industries. The first presentation within the regular sessions was given by DVN’s Wolfgang Huhn in his role as president of the GTB. All speeches were simultaneously translated.
Huhn focused his speech on the Necessity of Closed-Loop ADB Systems (Auto-Aiming) if we want to improve performance and reduce glare. With all ADAS sensors, it should be something possible nowadays with involvement if both ADAS and lighting team at OEM
Following that, there were speeches from Indiemicro, Xingyu, Forvia Hella, Hasco Vision, Mind, Marelli, Liaowang, ZKW. The ALE offered 36 presentations, each 20 or 25 minutes long, over two and a half days. New to the ALE was a presentation from the Technical University of Darmstadt (TUD) given by Korbinian Kunst, a PhD student of Prof. Khanh (who also attended). Kunst’s lecture was entitled, “Rethinking Low Beam: Why Static Headlamp Distributions Are Unsuitable for Urban Roads”.
Speakers from the OEMs Audi (2), Ford, IM motors, FAW VW, Chery, Geely, Leapmotor, Dongfeng, SAIC Volkswagen and VW China presented on the second and third days.
Further most interesting topics were the presentations of:
- Jin Chang, Xingyu: “Lighting aesthetics driven by CMF innovation”
- Di Xin, ZKW: “Global ADB requirements and solutions”
- Davide Puglisi, GTB Secretary General: “Regulatory development in GTB and GRE-IWG SLR”
- Nishant Gaur, Uno Minda: “Automotive Lighting beyond Illumination: From functional necessity to brand, safety and intelligence”
- Artur Biernatowski, Elmos: “Advanced LED drivers: Powering the next generation of Automotive Lighting”
Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures. The presentations were only partially distributed in paper form.
ALE Exhibition
For international visitors, the huge ALE exhibition, which features around 200 exhibitors, most of whom are Chinese, and 30,000 visitors over three days, is usually more important than the ALE conference. A first-time visitor said that it was as big as an auto show, and it felt that way, too.
The following pictures show some of the booths. Several European companies were present, including ams Osram, LMT, Elmos, Kurz, Forvia Hella, and Valeo. However, the main exhibitors were Chinese tier-1 and -2 suppliers, as well as tier-3 and even those further down the process chain.
My main takeaways from the ALE conference and exhibition, as well as the discussions held at the booths:
- The price war in the Chinese automotive industry is still ongoing.
- Car model cycles are becoming shorter.
- The refinancing of development and tooling costs is becoming critical.
- The headlamp trend in China is RGB DLP for greetings, show animations and video projections.
- MicroLED headlamp applications are less attractive in China.
- ISD with very small pitches were on display.
- A few tier-1 and tier-2 suppliers were added to the exhibition, while some left the floor.
- The number of LED makers is growing.
- The Huawei Aito S800 Maextro is the ultimate in Chinese high-tech car today. All Maextro suppliers proudly displayed their components.
