The technological war that involved a fierce battle between Audi and BMW to be first to market laser powered headlights is over, with BMW admitting it is quietly “disappearing” long-range high-beam technology.
While laser lighting is currently available on the BMW X7 and 4 Series GranCoupe and the Audi A5, A7, Q7 and Q8, BMW’s large car product manager Andreas Suhrer admitted the Bavarian carmaker has no future product plans for laser lighting.
Laser lighting systems made their debut in the BMW i8 and provided twice the high beams of contemporary LED systems while using 30 percent less energy.
They can extend beyond 600 meters in a narrow beam, complementing the wider spread of Matrix LED systems, using higher intensity developments of the DVD BlueRay player’s diodes and reflecting them forward.
Laser lights also promised to free designers from the limitations of headlights, because they reduced the reflector surface to 3 cm square from the 9 cm square of LEDs.
Laser lighting uses high-performance diodes, transmitted to special lenses and then passed through a fluorescent phosphor to generate an intense light that illuminates the road without heating the adjacent area.
This strategy, combined with the camera-based Active Digital High Beam Assist system, prevents them from blinding oncoming traffic.
In a golden age of headlight development, laser illumination was joined in the premium vehicle segment by thermal imaging cameras to detect the heat signatures of pedestrians and animals on or near the road, but they too have fallen out of favor with vehicle manufacturers. cars. .
BMW fought a heated battle with Audi to be first to market with laser light technology, which Audi first demonstrated at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (the year before Dieselgate brought its department of development), when it was still ablaze with technique and innovation. faith.
BMW then hastily arranged a limited release for i8 reservation holders, introducing laser lighting just a week before Audi’s planned production launch.
Audi then put laser lighting on its R8 sports car, which has ended production.
The war with laser light entered the legend of the automotive industry, but the two Bavarian neighbors were focused on the wrong enemy.
The laser light’s nemesis turned out to be rule 108 of the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, which limits headlight output on vehicles sold in the US to 150,000 candelas, while European systems allow up to 430,000 candelas.
European carmakers lobbied to allow stronger lighting in the US, and the regulatory framework was changed in 2022 to (technically) allow adaptive lighting systems like Matrix LEDs, which prompt other cars to minimize glare.
But the rule change, which came as a more than 300-page bill, hasn’t worked, and no current adaptive lighting system complies with it.
The laser’s lighting power was diluted to ineffectiveness, with its range effectively reduced from more than 600 meters elsewhere in the world to just 250 meters in the US.
“At the moment, we still have laser lighting on the G26 [4 Series GranCoupe] and X7, but we have no plans for the future,” Suhrer admitted.
“G61 and G61 [5 Series] it doesn’t and the new 7 Series doesn’t.
“I don’t think it’s quite finished, but for the next models we’re doing, Matrix LED lights will be our focus.
“Laser lights are pretty good in absolute range, but the latest generation Matrix LED lights do a better spread.”
The difficulty with that argument is that it was always like this, with the laser going for length and the Matrix LEDs used for a wide spread and blanking out other road users. In addition, laser illumination has always been used in conjunction with Matrix LEDs.
“LED and laser matrix [were fitted] together in previous machines, but LEDs are improving in performance with distribution and getting closer to the range of lasers,” explained Suhrer.
“There are some markets like the US where we couldn’t use the most performance from the lasers, so that makes the decision easier.”
An Audi spokesman said the company had no firm plans to install laser lights on any future production models, but did not rule it out.