There has been strong blowback against the introduction of DRL in motorcycles, rooted in doubt raised by English and American studies suggesting conventional low beam is a better solution than DRL for motorcycle conspicuity.
“1200 fatalities every year in Germany could be avoided if all cars had Xenon light”
Lex Krzyzanowski is active for more than 25 years in M&S for different B2B activities outside and within Philips. During the last seven years he works as OEM project marketing manager for the BG automotive lighting and has implemented a Global KAM organisation.
Together with several customers he established the LSS LightSightSafety initiative under the CLEPA umbrella in 2006, with the aim to promote better quality in car lighting to carmakers, end users and governmental organizations.
Driving Vision News: Could you give more information on the LSS challenge? What are the first results?
Lex Krzyzanowski: The initiative LSS was set up in 2006 under the Clepa umbrella. The objective of the initiative LSS is to create more awareness and understanding to the safety, comfort and environmental aspects of good quality car lighting at end users, carmakers as well as at relevant decision-making authorities.
The Initiative LSS is a coalition of AL, Hella, Valeo, Visteon, Osram and Philips, all of whom are involved with vehicle lighting in Europe. The Initiative commits to bring new lighting advancements to the market in order to increase the performance, safety, comfort and environmental compatibility of cars and trucks, enabling to support the continuous efforts of the society to reduce fatalities and to lower power consumption as well as pollution due to traffic.
Around 15 concept cars and 20 production cars — a number close to economic boom times — made their world debuts at the 79th Geneva Auto Show.
As a lighting expert who has been visiting motor shows for decades, I have been looking for any visible spark of innovation in design, style, or technology associated with front or rear lighting and will publish my report to Gold members on March 17, 2009.
These debut cars are sexy, stylish, and innovative thanks to headlamp and rear lamp design contributions, but the promotional buzz seldom includes much mention of the lighting equipment. Neither do the podiums highlight headlamp or rear lamp technologies. And still, obviously, lighting design remains one of the key differentiating factors in brand and model identity recognition.
It's time we make some noise, isn't it? Aside from the ecological and energy consumption paradigm, which we should give more attention in our automotive lighting communication, isn’t there place for other dreams? Couldn’t LEDs with their wonderful and flexible design possibilities open innovative avenues to attract new car buyers?
Five major Japanese carmakers cut their global production in January by 33 to 62% from a year earlier.
Volkswagen AG, who sold a million Audis, Skodas, and Volkswagens in China last year, say they expect to at least double that volume in 15 years.
By then, the company also plan to
General Motors Europe’s financial health deteriorated sharply during 2008 as the company suffered an adjusted pretax loss of $1.6bn, compared with $55m in 2007.
Visteon say they might violate their loan covenants after a $328m net loss in the fourth quarter of 2008 eroded their balance sheet.
FSI, France’s strategic investment fund, has taken a stake in auto parts supplier Valeo. FSI is a state-run investment fund launched in October last year by president Nicolas Sarkozy.
For decades, headlamp lenses were all made of glass, but since 1983 in America and 1993 in ECE countries, lenses made out of polycarbonate plastic have been permitted.
In a forum of opinions in the German magazine ATZautotechnology, Dr. Hamm, AL’s head of innovation, Dr Neumann, Visteon’s head of lighting development, and Dr Dorissen, Hella’s head of lighting development share the same position on lighting innovations with respect to performance, style, and energy savings.
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