Lights out for traditional bulbs?

With increased competition, advances in technology and maturity of the information age, automotive hardware has progressed by leaps and bounds. Cars today routinely use stronger and more complex computers than what was used to put men on the moon. With this "Vorsprung durch Technik" however, we have seen several errors in judgment and outright failures that inevitably accompany an evolving technical landscape. (We won't mention any names.)

Traditionally speaking, many of these new systems and components were designed with the intention of the making a vehicle perform better, stronger or faster, or they were developed simply because they could be, not that they necessarily add utility beyond a shock & awe factor. (Again, we won't mention any names, but if you look for vehicles that park themselves, you are on the right track.)

An additional legacy of many items like continuously variable transmission for examples, is that they can create and entirely new responsibility and set of skills required of any service technician or other mechanic charged with maintaining and repairing them. So, it is very rare and quite significant that a product comes along and replaces the standard through its sheer simplicity and design. Enter LED technology.

Light-emitting diodes have been around for a few years now and have found acceptance in a wide range of applications, which is beginning to provide production and design economies of scale. The technology itself, however, until recently has been limited in automotive to some interior lighting and rear (less bright) lights on a handful of vehicles. With all the heavyweights like Agilent, Hella, Lumileds, Nichia, and Osram all anticipating the next "thing" in automotive lighting, we are now seeing LEDs used as actual headlamps in the Lexus LS600h and upcoming Audi R8.

While all technologies experience some growing pains, the very nature of the LED design suggest that costs will quickly fall into line and make their use widespread throughout the industry in a very short time. It is suggested that the overall industry will grow by some 30-40% over the next couple of years making automotive LEDs and multi-billion dollar industry. It has also been suggested that LEDs may not only supplant old-school halogen bulbs, but also HID (Xenon gas) bulbs, which aren't even yet mainstream, by 2010.

The difference is that HID lighting, for example, represents one of those other technologies that complicates the vehicle and subsequently, the life of a service technician. LEDs will certainly have some hiccups along the way, but their simple, energy-efficient design and smaller (by as much as 50%) size will eventually prove irresistible for everything for light/bumper/grill design.

Comments

[Xenon HID]

The difference is that HID lighting, for example, represents one of those other technologies that complicates the vehicle and subsequently, the life of a service technician.

[HID Kit]

A HID kit not only brings the style elements to your car, but also works for the safety aspect while driving at night. Therefore it is important to choose a perfect xenon kit for your car that can meet both these two needs all together.

[HOWARDAmelia]

I took 1 st personal loans when I was 25 and this supported my family very much. However, I need the car loan over again.