From Dubai, Germany is a long way to travel to write a story on a car’s new headlights.
Launching their new luxury A8 model, Audi chose Germany for Auto Trader to put the car through its paces, but, the main story they wanted to convey was the new headlight technology on the car. To be honest I was a little confused: Mercedes had brought out similar technology on the new S Class a few months earlier, so why was Audi so keen to push the story? I managed to corner Stephan Berlitz, Head of Development for Lighting
Functions and Innovations at Audi, and asked him that exact question. “The Matrix LED headlights are a perfect example of our lighting strategy. They are three-dimensional, dynamic and interactive” he explained, “The new technology is Audi’s, we started showing this technology years ago on concept cars”. I don’t think he was too happy that I thought Mercedes had pipped him to the punch. It’s all about LED technology and instead of one bulb trying to illuminate a road, as in the past, each headlight comprises 25 high-beam light-emitting diodes, arranged in groups of five per reflector to dazzle the road ahead. Not only do these LEDs brighten the way ahead like never before, they also act as a light curtain that can be opened and closed when necessary, they don’t all need to shine at once. As soon as the camera in the A8 detects oncoming vehicles, the Audi Matrix LED headlights dip the relevant sections of the high-beam headlights.
