Global market review of automotive lighting

DUBLIN, IRELAND: Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Market Review of Automotive Lighting - Forecasts to 2015" report to its offering.

Automotive lighting technology is evolving at an unprecedented and accelerating pace. As the techniques by which light is produced, displayed and distributed grow more sophisticated, so must the store of knowledge and the specificity of regulations.

All OE suppliers are rapidly advancing the market presence of LED headlamps and variable-beam adaptive headlighting systems. Valeo is just as proud of its BeaMatic and MicroOptics as Hella is of its VarioX and Light Curtain, for example; both techniques are used to create variable headlight beam distributions and radically designed, high-performance LED tail lamps, respectively, though the two makers' techniques and their visual results are quite different.

Each year, the world's motor vehicle lighting industry produces and distributes billions of dollars' worth of lighting equipment, light sources, subassemblies and components to the world's vehicle makers and a diverse aftermarket. By 2011, the market scale for vehicular lighting is expected to reach $10.6bn.

Similar trends, of course, can be seen in the industry supplying any other category of automotive components. However, the lighting sector stands apart in its high level of cooperation among major and minor participants and its advanced degree of global integration.

This latest edition of just-auto's popular global market review of lighting incorporates the author's latest reports from the International Symposium on Automotive Lighting (ISAL) 2009 and V.I.S.I.O.N. 2008, with interview material from the world's top experts in automotive lighting.

CHAPTER 1 INDUSTRY OVERVIEW: This chapter outlines recent technology advances by major OE supplier and how each advanced lighting segment may develop in the short term.

Hella's Michael Kleinkes explains: "Automotive innovations find their way into the market via the premium segment, which is where we see today's LED headlamps. In this premium segment the performance and functionality of an LED headlamp has to be better or at least comparable to Xenon headlamps.

"Bend lighting, adaptive beam formation, and an adaptive cut-off line to adapt the range of the low beam according to oncoming and proceeding traffic should all be possible. On the other hand, political and social requirements such as the current CO2 discussion and increasing oil price demand energy-efficient headlight systems in the volume segments."

CHAPTER 2 REGULATION: POLICY AND PHILOSOPHY: In the past, each one of the world's countries enforced its own unique technical standards and installation requirements for automotive lighting devices and systems. As cars grew more dependable and infrastructure improved sufficiently to support international travel, and as the world's vehicle makers sought to sell vehicles outside their domestic markets, it became generally desirable to reduce the proliferation of different requirements and technical standards.

This chapter makes sense of the latest industry regulation and its effects on the auto lighting industry.

CHAPTER 3 MARKET REVIEW OF LIGHTING TECHNOLOGIES: By 2018, it is expected that Xenon headlamps will no longer be designed into new high-end car models; LED will have come to dominate the premium lighting sector. Additional LED headlamp population will come in the eco-car segment, particularly in electric and hybrid vehicles. The two vehicle classes will have very different types of LED headlamps, though. Premium cars will have high-end, multiple-emitter headlamps with performance meeting or exceeding that of today's premium Xenons, while eco-cars will have a minimal LED emitter count for low headlight power consumption with performance comparable to today's halogens.