FROM OIL BURNERS TO LASER TECHNOLOGY - CAR HEADLIGHTS HAVE AN ILLUMINATING STORY.
Depending on your age, you may have first-hand experience with the way car headlights have evolved over the years. I started my driving career in a Renault 5, followed by a Mk1 Golf and a few other entry-level cars. The headlights were absolutely terrible, but being young with perfect eyesight and not really having had more expensive cars to gauge a comparison with, they did their job. When it came time to modify my Mk1, one of the easiest and more affordable things to do was upgrade the headlight bulbs to something better than OEM. Some white light Osrams made a pretty cool difference, so much so that I’ve done the same thing in every car I’ve owned. A mate of mine upgraded his Mk1 headlights with an aftermarket HID (high-intensity discharge) kit that needed an extra ballast installed to make things work - they gave a day/night difference, excuse the pun. For many years I drove an Opel Corsa B, and I got used to the headlights that were actually terrible, something I only realised when I got my current Mk4 GTi. One year apart in model years but the difference between the base Corsa and the range-topping GTi was mind-blowing. I mean yeah, I did know new cars had better lights thanks to all the press cars I’ve had over the years, but they were with me for a week at a time, not every day. I’ve been lucky enough to drive some serious cars that I’ll never be able to afford, and the most memorable headlights were in the 2016 Opel Astra. They were game-changers with a then-new IntelliLux LED Matrix System that automatically dimmed for approaching cars and automatically brightened up when there were no cars. Things have just improved from there. It got me thinking about where automotive lighting started. It’s been an impressive run.
When the first cars arrived in the late 19th century, they borrowed lighting “technology” from horse-drawn carriages and they were either oil or acetylene lamps. The oil version burned fuel like kerosene and produced a dim, flickering light, much like a 1983 Mk1 Golf. The acetylene kind was better, these used gas generated by calcium carbide reacting with water. These were brighter and more reliable, not blowing out in the wind. They were still kak. The introduction of electric headlights in the early 20th century was a revelation, and believe it or not, Cadillac was the pioneer after introducing the first electric lighting system integrated with a car’s electrical system in 1912. Some things haven’t changed, they were optional extras at first but soon became a standard. This is when a familiar company started mass-producing headlights - General Electric. The next improvement was when the sealed beam headlight was introduced in 1939, it combined the bulb, reflector, and lens into a single, sealed unit. Halogen headlights started in the '60s, these are the ones like in the Mk1, they use a tungsten filament and halogen gas to produce brighter, whiter light. The main thing is that this system allowed for the replacement of bulbs. They’re still in use in many cars today. The next step up came in the ‘90s when xenon HID headlights arrived using an electric arc to ignite xenon gas and the result was a brighter light with longer and wider beams, again, they’re still found in many cars today. The 2000s saw the advent of LED technology in headlights and they’re found in more and more new cars. They’re lighter, they last longer and they don’t generate nearly as much heat as their predecessors. The latest thing is laser headlights that popped up around ten years ago, first seen on some BMW and Audi models. These use laser diodes to excite a phosphor material, creating extremely bright and focused light that gives an unparalleled range with precision focus. They’re even more energy efficient than LEDs but are still expensive. The future of headlights looks bright, companies are working on things like infrared night vision lights and even augmented reality projections that can display navigation and hazard information directly on the road instead of on the screen as per the common head-up displays.
Take a look at the YouTube video from chaps who know a lot more about automotive lighting than we do in their video that also regales the story of headlights from inception as oil burning things through to the latest laser technology: The Problem With These Headlights | The Engineers Post
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