Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas
It’s unclear when laser headlamps will arrive in the US.
The Department of Transportation has a history of sloth, all in the
name of protecting the public from technologies the feds are slow to
grasp: any headlamp other than round 5.25- or 7-inch, replaceable-bulb
headlamps, xenon headlamps, headlamps with lenses and sharply defined
cutoffs, LED headlamps, and steerable headlamps.
European
automakers have headlamps that can sense oncoming cars and mask the
light reaching that car, allowing for medium- or high-beam driving all
the time, and that’s in limbo, too. The BMW i8 won’t be offered with
laser headlamps in the US.
The
Laser Light version of the Audi Sport Quattro is an adaptation of the
Sport Quattro concept car shown at last September’s Frankfurt Auto Show.
The first Li-Fi smartphone prototype was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 7–10 in 2014. The phone uses SunPartner's Wysips CONNECT, a technique that converts light waves into usable energy, making the phone capable of receiving and decoding signals without drawing on its battery.
LG will debut its new 77-inch curved OLED Ultra HD TV.
Samsung unveiled its curved TVs with two series of concave TVs.
Laser diodes were unveiled at the CES Show that are going to be used for high beam headlights in Audi vehicles. The high beams will be lasers, though the low beams will be light-emitting diodes.
The car maker says that their high beams have a 500-meter range, which is roughly twice the distance of LED high beams.
Lasers are expensive though. Lasers are smaller, brighter and more energy efficient than LED headlamps.
Their laser headlamps use less than half the energy of LEDs. Laser diodes can emit 170 lumens per watt, while LEDs generate only 100 lumens. Lasers are sensitive to heat but that has not stopped their production for vehicles. Laser technology is not as advanced compared with LEDs, which have been around for decades.
Toyota debuted its first zero emission car which is powered by fuel cells.The Sport Quattro Laser Light uses two trapezoidal headlamp elements per side.
The outer ring comprises a matrix of LED low beams with an aperture mask. The inner segment uses laser diodes to generate the laser light. Audi says the laser beams can reach 1,640 feet (500 meters) or a third of a mile. Audi says that’s twice the range and three times the lumosity (brightness) of LED beam headlamps. Audi board member Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg said the headlamps “leave all previous systems in the dark.” That assumes there’s no snow, fog or rain in your path, or oncoming cars that don’t allow for high beams.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the laser beams
It’s unclear when laser headlamps will arrive in the US.
The Department of Transportation has a history of sloth, all in the
name of protecting the public from technologies the feds are slow to
grasp: any headlamp other than round 5.25- or 7-inch, replaceable-bulb
headlamps, xenon headlamps, headlamps with lenses and sharply defined
cutoffs, LED headlamps, and steerable headlamps.
The feds even have a rule regulating the minimum size of a turn signal lens that’s holding up an Audi LED sequential turn signal (Ford gets away with sequential turn signals because the first lens is big enough on its own).
European
automakers have headlamps that can sense oncoming cars and mask the
light reaching that car, allowing for medium- or high-beam driving all
the time, and that’s in limbo, too. The BMW i8 won’t be offered with
laser headlamps in the US.
The DoT can’t control the racetrack and if you’re an endurance racing fan, you’ll see Audi laser headlamps there in the coming year on the 2014 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro LMP1 racecar.
