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Brighter future thanks to LED headlights

The new Audi R8 V10 is the first car in the world to feature LED headlamps. As Audi’s Dr Wolfgang Huhn explains, these offer benefits in terms of light, weight and fuel consumption. Plus the prospect of ‘intelligent’ headlamps in the future.

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10 January 2012

The new Audi R8 V10 is the first car in the world to feature LED headlamps. As Audi’s Dr Wolfgang Huhn explains, these offer benefits in terms of light, weight and fuel consumption. Plus the prospect of ‘intelligent’ headlamps in the future. The Audi R8 V10 is the first car in the world to be equipped with all-LED (light emitting diode) headlamps.

For the first time LEDs have been used for both low beam and high beam settings. As well as for daytime running lights and indicators. The LED lights are a new generation of headlamps which reduce CO2 emissions.

A lot of people initially viewed this development as a mere marketing gimmick. Yet everyone who has seen these lights in action is astonished by the excellent output and the agreeable, daylight-esque colour of the light.

At Audi, we were the first car manufacturer to recognise the potential of revolutionary LED lighting technology. And then incorporate it during development of our vehicles.

Today’s xenon and LED headlights are four times more energy efficient than halogen headlights. And by 2018, LED technology should be about eight times more efficient than halogen light.

In addition, LEDs excel due to their practically indefinite service life and react up to 10 times more quickly than traditional incandescent bulbs.

Greater safety, lower fuel consumption
LEDs can also reduce a vehicle’s fuel consumption. When daytime running lights become mandatory in the European Union in February 2011, Audi models with on-board LED technology will be ahead of the competition.

Drivers in many European countries – such as Italy, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, and Sweden – already must use their lights during the day. As a result, just one vehicle’s conventional low-beam headlights, taillights, and licence-plate illumination consume some 200 watts – which the alternator must constantly generate.

By comparison, a mere 15 watts is required to power the new Audi A4’s modern LED daytime running lights. All in all, that equates to a decrease of about 0.2 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres (about 1mpg); and 4 grams fewer CO2 emissions per kilometre.

A statistical example clearly illustrates the significance of these figures: thanks to this new technology, the Audi models with LED daytime running lights sold in 2008 alone consumed – during just their first year in use – about 10 million fewer litres of fuel and emitted approximately 25,000 fewer metric tons of CO2.

The discovery of ‘digital light’
‘Digital light’ can be made more or less bright electronically. And precisely adapted to a driver’s needs. Audi developers are convinced that future generations of headlights will react to weather conditions; a vehicle’s speed; the distance between vehicles; and potentially dangerous objects.

We’re striving to create intelligent headlights and taillights. These will think and anticipate in the interest of enhancing a driver’s safety and comfort.

For example, there are already high-beam headlights in pre-series development which will allow drivers to navigate roads at night without temporarily blinding oncoming drivers.

This is made possible by a variable distribution of light: an electronic system continuously calculates the distance to any approaching vehicles to ensure that the road ahead is ideally illuminated at all times – without irritating oncoming drivers.

Further information
Read the Editor’s Blog for further comment on LED headlamps: LED headlamps light up the way

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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