RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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America’s roads are finally getting modern headlight technology that the rest of the world has had for over a decade. A few automakers, including, Tesla and Rivian , have dipped their toes into the adaptive lighting waters in recent years. Now legacy automakers are bringing the advanced lighting technology to the U.S. market.
With the debut of the 2027 Audi Q7 and Q9 , both of which will arrive in U.S. dealers later this year, the automaker will be bringing its new digital Matrix LED adaptive lighting system to America for the first time. On the latest episode of The Drivecast , Head of Exterior Lighting for Audi AG Michael Kruppa and vehicle lighting and regulation subject matter expert Daniel Stern, who serves as chief editor of Driving Vision News a global lighting industry technical journal of record, break down what the new lighting tech coming to America means, what took so long, and the differences in how automakers are implementing the lighting systems.
The U.S. is laughably behind the rest of the world when it comes to headlight technology. It’s not because the technology didn’t exist, but rather because outdated U.S. laws have prevented automakers from bringing these modern technological marvels to U.S. roads. Until now.
Back in 2021, a lifetime ago, the government finally got its act together and brought U.S. headlight regulations and laws into the modern era via the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, also known as H.R. 3684 .
Enthusiasts have been clamoring for modern headlights for years. It’s the same story for safety advocates. And now, the time has come.
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Full Transcript
Joel: All right, everyone, we’re here in Munich, Germany today with a super special episode. We’re talking to Michael, who is at Audi. He’s a doctor, and he’s Head of Lighting and Exterior Lighting for Audi—all of Audi. We’re going to talk about modern lighting, laws, and how all of a sudden we’re about to get modern lighting. We’re about to be in the modern age finally in America. Europe has been there for years, correct?
Michael: Absolutely.
Joel: We’re about to catch up over here in America.
Michael: Yeah, that’s the task.
Joel: Give us a little background on you and how you got into lighting where you are today, so that everyone knows your background.
Michael: First of all, thank you. Nice to meet you. My background: I got a PhD in chemistry, which is a little crazy to work in automotive. Spent a year in San Diego for a postdoctoral fellowship, and after that, I joined Osram Opto Semiconductors in Germany. So this was my first hands-on lighting. This was around 2006. During the time, we were fighting very hard to bring solid-state lighting into automotive. We really had to convince the people that LEDs are so reliable that you really can put them in the exterior light of a car.
After several years, getting to know what Audi was doing out of that, I still loved the daytime running lights—I think it was A5, first I saw on the road. This was my biggest dream: to work for this company. I was applying in 2012, 2013, got the job possibility, and then I joined Audi years later in the lighting team. First starting in the rear, doing a lot with the digital OLED, which you also saw today, and then following step-by-step: pre-development, function development, and now ending up in front lighting.
Joel: It’s crazy to hear someone in charge of lighting talk about how with LEDs we had to convince people these are the future, we had to convince people they’re reliable. Because back in my day, I remember my first car was a 1997 Jeep Cherokee XJ, and it had the sealed-beam halogens. I removed those lights, I put in Hella housings, and then I put in PIAA bulbs so you could switch out the bulbs and all that stuff. Now we’re in an era where you can’t just change out your headlights anymore. They’re crazy expensive; headlights are $1,000 to $9,000, and they’ve got crazy active elements to them and everything.
Now we’re about to go to that next level, right? LEDs are about to look like incandescent bulbs almost. We’re about to take the next leap with OLED technology and adaptive Matrix LED headlights. So, let’s actually talk about that. One of the things before we get into the new technology itself, let’s talk about laws and how we got here. America is behind in so many ways, of course, as people know on the podcast. But in lighting specifically, we are behind Europe and the rest of the world in many ways.
The rest of the world has what’s called matrix lighting. They’ve actually had laser lights. They’ve had so many advances that we missed out on because of our outdated 1980s-era regulations. That just changed recently—we’ve done many stories about this. Back in 2022, the laws changed. But as people that listen to this podcast know, cars aren’t developed in a year or two, right? So if a law changes in 2022, it takes years for someone to develop, even at a rapid pace, to get modern lighting over to America and meet regulations. Can you talk to us a little bit why we had the old laws and what changed to enable us to get moder...
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