Laser Headlights: A Brighter Outlook for Aging Eyes

By Bill McLauchlan
Wars are a fact of life in the auto industry: horsepower wars, price wars, sales and market share wars and, lately, the technology war as manufacturers ramp up their offerings on the electronic front.

One technology development of interest for baby boomer and older drivers is the current ‘laser’ war heating up in Europe between Audi and BMW. Both are locked in a fascinating battle to see who will put laser headlamps into production first. That’s because, “Laser lights can see twice as far as today’s benchmark LED headlamps,” claims BMW’s lighting guru, Tom Haussman.

Photo: BMW Group
LED headlight beam (left) sees up to 300 metres ahead. The laser lights on the right shine twice as far.

That points to a brighter future for drivers in the 50+ age bracket. Less light reaches the retina in an aging eye than it does in a younger eye. First, pupil size reduces with age so less light enters the eye. Second, the lens, which is normally clear in a younger person, begins to yellow and thicken with age, also impeding the transmission of light. Studies show the average 60-year-old needs at least three times the amount of light compared with the average 20-year-old. An older driver, therefore, may see poorly in dim or dark road conditions, and lose both visual acuity and contrast sensitivity – vital for seeing and identifying a pedestrian or other potential hazard ahead.

And, according the AAA (American Automobile Association), a typical driver makes 20 decisions per mile (roughly 1.5 km for Canadian drivers) and has less than half a second to react quickly to see, assess and react to avoid a road accident.

So any improvement in headlamp illumination and range is welcome news for any older driver, particularly those who feel uneasy driving at night.

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BMW’s Haussman, with tens of thousands of miles in a 7 Series test car under his belt, says a staggering 600 metres (1,968 feet) of vision is available with laser headlights. Audi has been testing too, with its 2014 Le Mans-winning R18 e-tron quattro race car – lighting up traffic as far as 1000 metres (3,281 feet) ahead during the night in the June 24-hour endurance event.

By the time you read this, BMW’s technological flagship i8 hybrid sports car will offer them as an option when it goes on sale mid-summer. Audi’s contender, a special edition R8 LMX, is due to go on sale about the same time. Only 99 R8 LMXs with the advanced laser lights will be available at around $300,000 US a pop (all in Europe) while some 300 BMW i8s are expected to make to North America, though the entire first year’s 2014 production is already sold out. So far, no volume production car equipped with laser headlamps has been announced, though the forthcoming third-generation replacement for Audi’s sporty TT model is likely to feature them when it debuts in late 2015.

Photo: BMW Group
BMW i8 hybrid sports car

The arrival of laser lighting is just the latest example of how rapidly headlight technology is evolving. In the early 1940s federal regulations decreed seven-inch round sealed-beam headlamps for all cars. Then, in 1958, a change to four smaller lamps arrived, along with fins and chrome. By the mid-70s, sharp creases and wedge-shape styling fueled a desire for rectangular lights. Though the shapes changed the basic bulb and lens arrangement didn’t until the first halogen headlight appeared in Europe in the early 1960s, though it took until 1978 for most cars in North America to switch to halogens.

From there things picked up speed. The next technology breakthrough came in the early ’90s with high-intensity discharge (HID) systems, also called zenon headlights. They were not only brighter than halogens but had a longer life too – about twice the 1,000-hour average for halogens and more energy efficient too.

The latest leap comes courtesy of LEDs and LED Matrix lighting. First seen as running lights in Europe in the 2004 Audi R8 and in 2008 as low-beam and side-marker lighting on the Lexus LS 600h hybrid here, many automakers are now adopting LED technology as a styling touch in addition to the lighting component. Audi was the first to adopt this approach, establishing a unique signature design theme that has since been plagiarized in one way or another by many other car makers.

Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo are now offering full LED lighting systems on some current models.

More recently Audi has been working on an improved version, which it terms LED Matrix, for better and safer use. At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the German automaker introduced its newest technology in which LEDs are divided into several different segments. They can be independently activated, deactivated or dimmed and made to work together with lenses and/or reflectors to adjust/direct light in accordance with driving conditions. All this with no action needed by the driver. Audi’s A8 luxury flagship sedan has recently been made available with matrix LED headlamps.

The LED Matrix set-up also works with on-board cameras so that when it detects oncoming or other traffic ahead, sections of the high beam can be blocked to minimize dazzle and glare, see ‘around’ a car ahead on a dark rural road, or light up a tight traffic gap where needed. It can even work with the car’s GPS-based nav system to see what’s ahead and automatically swivel, for instance, when the car approaches a curve.

Now laser headlights are just around the corner and, teamed with LED Matrix units, promise to leave all other systems in the dark. Not only are they far brighter than LEDs. They also use 30 percent less energy. They’re 30 percent lighter than LEDs (which themselves use 30 percent less energy than Bi-Xenon lights) and, like LEDs, laser headlights should last for the life of the car.

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Audi previewed the future look of lighting when it unveiled this Sport
Quattro laserlight concept coupe at the 2014 Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas.

The only drawback at the moment is receiving federal approval before they can be allowed on North American roads. Rather ironic, isn’t it? Thanks to antiquated ’60s-era government safety regs delaying the adoption of LED Matrix and laser systems, this visionary advance with real benefits for a huge and growing segment of our driving population won’t see the light of day here until the regulatory dimbulbs switch on to the advances in modern lighting technology.