In 1921 the first electric lights were mounted on a car and it was not until 1973 that the next great advance in lighting came in the form of double headlights. Xenon headlights were born in 2008 and, since then, every two years there has been a breakthrough in car lighting thanks to the advent of electronics.
Now there are cars with LED, Full LED, laser, matrix headlights, OLED... and what is yet to come, as we have been able to see first-hand in Ingolstadt. At the headquarters, the brands with the four rings have told us how they work and how they are going to work and with a host of the stature of César Muntada, the head of design and lighting for the German brand.
Twelve people work in his team, on short and medium-term projects with safety as the first reason. The custom car lights of Audi is very advanced in the car industry. A factor that is not always considered as much as it should be, because many times one is tempted to talk more about design than about the best safety that driving at night with better lighting implies. Or that the car is seen by other drivers and pedestrians.
Safety, therefore, is the first motivation for work and is reflected, for example, in the three new functions that the Matrix LED digital lights of the Audi A8 are now debuting, the flagship of the German brand that has just been renewed.
The first of these is the orientation of the lights, so that, for example, if we cross a road under construction with different lanes, the light focuses only on the lane in which we must travel. This functionality is now possible thanks to digital technology.
The second new possibility of the Digital Matrix LED is the projection on the road of visual signals, for example arrows in the lane in which we must drive or lateral projections when we connect the indicators.
Audi A8 new technology lights
This not only helps to improve visibility for the driver, but also for other road users who can see our movements in advance. Even pedestrians, who can anticipate our reactions behind the wheel in low light situations
Thirdly, the Audi A8 now launches a function that projects a danger sign (triangle with exclamation point) onto the road to warn the driver of a danger in the form, for example, of a car breakdown. So we can continue looking at the road and be warned, so that the reaction time is shortened.
OLED technology for taillights, a world to explore
Although safety prevails, I must admit that this desire to pay attention to the design is logical when you know, for example, the possibilities of configuring the rear lights with OLED technology. This organic LED light system (hence the acronym OLED) made its debut in the Audi TTRS in 2016 and four years later is used in all Audi Q5s.
It works with semiconductors and components that are 80 times smaller than a human hair, based on triangles of mirrors that allow all imaginable configurations. For now, in the new Audi A8 you can select from the multifunction screen up to three different designs, to customize the rear lights like never before. So more companies which custom headlights for cars are going to develop their led car lights.
In addition, the possibilities of OLED lights are so many that we have only seen the beginning and, for example, in the Audi A6 e-tron prototype you can select a mode in which the light is dynamic all the time and covers the entire rear band. . This, for now, is not legal and as César Muntada told us, the limits to lighting systems are more legal than technical.
In fact, one of the priorities of his team at Audi is to be up to date in terms of legislation, because the rules are also different depending on the country- For example, regulations in China are more lax than in Europe.
Because even Audi is advancing in unexplored fields such as gamification and already has prototypes that project a video game onto a wall that is controlled with the well-known remote control of a console. For example, it can be used while recharging the battery…
I have been able to test it first hand in Ingolstadt and it opens up a world of possibilities not seen until now, because thanks to the lighting systems you can interact with the user like never before. The only limit is the law.
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