2011 Mercedes Benz CL500 goes LED Day Light Running lamps

A new 2011 CL500, sleek, smart, heavy of 2 tons,but swift, on a 4.6L V8 Engineer pushes hard for speed but care about your wallet with this BlueEffeciency. Official data claims 9.5L/100Km, achieves as a 3L engine car of HKD$1.4/km level, is that amazing!?


Note the DRL Day Light Running lamp is all LED, looks smarter than ever. I guess that they are Osram LED!

HK Snob

LED for Volkswagen L1 EV Car.

Thomas Reiners, director of Application Technology for special lighting at Osram said, “Compact and efficient LED sources will be mandatory for low energy consumption especially the environmental friendly electric vehicles in the future in order to achieve the car industry’s CO2 objectives. A dipped beam headlight with these light sources will use less than 15 watts and therefore save 40 watts of power input per vehicle side compared with a halogen solution.”
With a power input of 19 watts per dipped beam, the one-liter car’s lighting is far more energy efficient today than conventional headlight solutions, in which mostly halogen lamps with 55 watts are used. Even Xenon lamps at 35 watts of input use 20 percent more energy on dipped lights (95 percent of nighttime driving) than two Joule JFL2 LED modules.
“Energy efficiency and ease of integration were good reasons to rely on LED solutions for headlights on our one-liter car. This technology is just as forward-looking as our vehicle,” said Henning Kiel, lighting engineer at Volkswagen. Replaceable LED light sources represent a genuine alternative to the lamps already available in the car industry.
Oct 27, 2009 Osram’s LED technology will contribute to the energy efficiency of Volkswagen’s L1 concept car, which according to Volkswagen can go into production in 2013, has headlights that are equipped with new Osram Joule JFL2 LED systems and matching reflectors. The LED modules take care of the dipped and main beam functions and consume far less energy than conventional headlamps. Joule JFL2 LED modules will be introduced in production in early 2010 and can then be included in new vehicle models easily and across multiple platforms.

US or European technology for LED is still leading the market aas in the niche market of Automobile, however, once the stringent automobile quality requirement has been qualified, and people has been seeing this kind of head Lamp running on the road for a few years, more and more cars are keen on using LED as their lighting solutions. Instead of acting as a sales gadget for top of the line model. more volume production model will be using LED the LED head lamp business will grow gradually. As who will be paying such a large amount of money to buy a car not using LED on your, LS430, 3.5TL, 750Li, Q7 3.6 Quattro, Bentley Continental, Porsche Panamerica, or a Cayenne Turbo?

Feverip

Lumileds Altilon LED for Automobile lighting

LUXEON Altilon LEDs deliver a white light solution for automotive applications including High beam, low beam, Day light running lights, static bending lamps and position lamps. This is a true solid-stats lighting technology to be used on Automotive.

The LED has advantage faster response, 140 times faster than incandescent lamp which create additional 24 feet braking distance at 65mph. 15% power saving comparing incandescent lamps. A much longer life time. In fact this Altilon LED was developed for Audi R8 and then Q7 High and low beam Lightings.

Viewing from structure of Altilon from the Philips Website, that is a Lumileds Flip Chip Multichip technology bonding on ceramic substrates; apply a phosphor coating on the chip, and then using a Direct Eutectic machine to handle the gold tin Eutectic bonding on the metal snug. Then pass to an heavy Aluminum wire bonder to place the Aluminum ribbon connectors. This is a sophisticated and expensive bonding.

LUXEON Altilon Offers:
Over 850 lumens at 1000 mA and 60 MNits at 1000 mA
Lower forward lighting power load: 7.0W and 13.7W
Optimized to meet global cut-off specifications
Unobstructed access to emitting surface
Fiducials for optical and thermal alignment
130°C maximum case temperature: 1.5°K/W (1x4)
Optional space lug lead configuration
White color space conforms to both ECE and SAE specifications
AEC-Q101 Qualified

Obvious they are able to be sold as discrete products and to the light fixture assembler for making Light modules for various Automobile. I am interesting to know if that is an upgrade kit available for my car and how much!?

Sylvania LED for Car Tail Light

Sylvania Special LED Design

Standard tail light system with red and amber lenses.
The same tail light system redesigned to use the LED bulb.

The assembly is colorless in the unlit state.

When lit, the LED bulb generates the required signal function color.

SYLVANIA has introduced an innovative new standardized automotive light source. The LED bulb is designed for use in reflectors systems designed for it. It cannot be used as a direct replacement for current incandescent signal, brake, or reverse light applications.

The LED can ahve the following design features:

1.Creates new styling opportunities for lit and unlit condition, including high-tech, clear lens, no color, no lamp inside appearance
2. Different optical solutions possible via different reflector designs
3. Dual Intensity operation: Brake / turn functions plus running light

4. Faster rise time - approximately 140 times faster than incandescent sources: creates an additional 24 feet of stopping distance at 65 mph
5. Draws only 15% of the energy required to power an incandescent bulb: 4.3W compared to 27W

OSRAM SYLVANIA focuses on developing the most advanced LED modules and drivers available and supplying them to their OEM customers. They use Osram LED on their fixtures.

LED for Honda Automotives

Osram Presentation Material at LED show

Automotive has been intensively using LED since 1999. Nowadays, there are 300-350 LED in a car, a Maybach is even using 528 LEDs. The use of LED brings along a lot of advantage like Saftey as LED turn on in juts 2 ns and Incandescnet may need 300 ms which is many times slower. LED is power saving vesus the use of incandescent light bulbs. If all Signal function of standard incandescent lamp were replaced with LED, the power consumption will be reduced from 206W to 40W. The lower Electrical consumption created reduction of 237 grams of CO2 emission for a distance of 100KM when comparing with Incandescent options.

Take for an instance, assume 200 hours of Brake operstion, 220 hours of tail signal and 75 hours of turning signal operation per year, A median Vehicle age of 9.7 years using Joule LED will cut 400 Kg of CO2 emission over the life of the vehicle. The lower wattage reduces the drag on the electrical system, which translates into small but measurable fuel saving. An Equivalent of an approxiamtely 20 Litre of gas will be saved a year too.

RCL Rear Combination lamps are almost LED for certain Mid range and Hi End Car. The only challenge is the Hi beam Head lamp as it has to generate as much as a few thousandy Lumen of white light under the high temperture of engine compartment. European Cars such as Audi R8, Q7 is using Philips. Mercedes Benz is consider to use LED hi Beam head lamp. DRL (day light running lamp) is Osram Gold Dragons.

On the other hand Japanese car is yet not going LED Hi beam LED head lamp until recent car show that Honda is using a conservative way of Multi LED to form the hi beam head lamp. This is not the first Example as Cadillac Escalade Platinum has been using Osram Ostar LED as the Hi and Low beam Head lamp seince end 2007.

Japanese is used to be a leader in LED design and Efficacy 12 year go, however now they have been overtaken by US and European players in term so Efficacy and design. Has been overtaken Japan as an average, except Nichia is still the world 2nd Highest Efficacy in LED emission at 145 Lm/Watt.

Recently Honda car such as CR-Z Concept, FCX Clarity and Insight Concept car has been reviewed with extensive use of LED as interior and exterior decorative LED, function LED and Signaling, As the Automotive forward lamp, they use Multi LED module. My comment on the LED layout is Gorgeous! I am looking forward that these Concept cars will be commercially available soon in Hong Kong.

feverip

LED Head Lamp shall be the future illumination light source

Since 2002, LEDs have developed rapidly due to their use in mobile phones. With the improvement of LED luminescence technology, LEDs no longer rely on the mobile phone industry. They now enter the semiconductor lighting era. But due to limited Efficacy, still we have to wait for a while before that kind of higher efficacy LED 200Lm/Watt can be invented for more applications other than automotive illumination.

The Auto production was low in the past three quarters, until government subsidizing the replacement of old vehicles, Ford has announced that they will have to increase their production from 490K units to 570 K unit in the fourth quarters. This may have a positive sign of the early recovery of auto industry.

There are almost 300-350 LED in a car and Auto LED has a much tougher requirement on reliability. Naturally the sales price of the LED for Auto is higher than other application.

Currently, brake lights are the main LED application for vehicles. The market penetration rate was 53% in 2007; the figure will increase to 85% by 2011. In addition, the penetration rate of vehicle LED taillights was close to 15%, and the figure is expected to reach 38% by 2011.

Moreover, the Cadillac Escalade was the first car in the world to adopt LEDs both in its high beam and low beam lights, signifying that LEDs have entered the headlight era. Taiwan Everlight will also start the mass production of LED headlights as early as Q3 2008; their main client is China DongFeng Motor Corporation. Audi R8 with a production volume of 20 units day, hand made with the best technician who is selected from all Audi technicians.

I did see front high beam head lamp light up, with two Snow White LED beam, with the Osram DRL LED surrounding it. That light up appearance has a stunning technological outfit of powerful muscle car dressed in a fine German tuxedo. That was eye catching when it moved gracefully and slowly from the Convention Centre towards central.

Audi R8 Hi beam LED was a masterpiece of Lumileds using its TTFC Lumiramic technology, I am wondering that this might be given precedence over all other LED type in the High Power Illumination LED development.

Top 3 LED Automotive LED Makers

Top 3 automotive LED makers have over 50% of market
Germany’s Osram Opto Semiconductors was the largest supplier of LEDs for automotive applications in 2007 (with about 23% market share), followed by the USA’s Philips Lumileds and Japan’s Nichia (each with about 16%), estimates a report ‘The Worldwide Market for LEDs in Automotive Applications’ by IMS Research.

But, despite this, Lumileds and Nichia do not compete with each other to a large extent. “Lumileds sell LEDs mainly for exterior applications while Nichia sell mainly for interior applications,” says analyst Jamie Fox. “There are also geographical differences in the supply chain.” For example, Nichia does not sell many LEDs for automotive applications in Europe, where Osram are strong (in both interior and exterior applications).”

Osram, Nichia and Lumileds pioneered LEDs for use in daytime running lights, and are now also pioneering LEDs for headlamps. This year the soon-to-be released Audi R8 will feature a full LED headlamp, supplied by German lighting manufacturer Automotive Lighting, with LEDs supplied by Osram and Lumileds. This will be the second vehicle to feature LEDs in the headlamp, after the Lexus LS600h, which used Koito headlamps with Nichia LEDs. In addition, in December General Motors announced that a special edition of its Cadillac Escalade Platinum will this year become the first production sports utility vehicle (SUV) with LED headlamps.
The experience of these companies in this sector, and the more challenging requirements for durability and brightness of LEDs (in some applications) in cars compared with mobile phones, MP3 players and TVs, make it difficult for other suppliers to mount a challenge, says IMS. While many other suppliers, such as Toshiba, Avago and Everlight, sell LEDs into this sector, they sell fewer.

However, in the next decade, as the battleground moves from interior and rear lighting applications to the front of the vehicle, this seems set to change. Lumileds, Osram and Nichia all provide LEDs of high brightness and quality that are well suited to forward lighting applications. With a potentially large market for LEDs in headlamps in the next decade, it will be interesting to see which of the big three, or even any of their other competitors, is able to win the biggest share of the market for headlamp applications in 2008 and 2009, says IMS.
The market research firm expects the total automotive LED market to double from $650m in 2006 to $1.3bn within 10 years.

PS

Lexus LS600ih LED head lamp (low beam)

Audi R8 Hi Low beam LED head lamps

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Visit: http://www.imsresearch.com/