These smart light bulbs are coming to America

MUNICH—Electronic technology in the US is about to become smart. When Audi is the Q9 SUV going on sale here at the end of this year, it will feature the latest driver’s lights, which manage the best way to provide better, brighter lighting and reduce glare for the driver and other road users. This kind of technology is old hat to our European readers, but now it’s making its way onto our roads again after years of lobbying and long-term efforts to meet new government regulations. And after trying to turn on the lights on a recent trip to Europe, I can say, “It’s about time.”

Although America is known as the powerhouse, we’ve lagged behind Europe and Japan in automotive lighting technology for decades, thanks to 1960s regulations that allowed low- and high-beam headlights, nothing more. Over the years, OEMs such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volvo have lobbied the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow them to bring the latest technology to these shores to no avail.

At first, it was like that laser beamswhich can cause their light to be much farther down the road than a normal halogen or xenon lamp. The lasers are cool, but the driver control technology is really cool. Each headlight is made up of multipixel LEDs, and by turning off some of the pixels, the headlight can be designed to deflect light to cool oncoming traffic instead of turning it down.

Image of Audi digital matrix LED lights.

Credit: Audi

Confirm it

Toyota was the first company to ask the government to allow it to introduce electric driving in 2013—the same year Audi introduced the technology in Europe in the A8—but. it wasn’t until 2022 that NHTSA agreed that the technology had significant safety benefits and should be allowed on US roads. In Europe and Japan, where self-driving technology has been legal for years, approval follows road tests by traffic regulators and independent regulators.

But NHTSA said this was not strict enough in the US, where car manufacturers do not get approval for new products but certify themselves, telling the government that they will comply with safety regulations. Instead, NHTSA established a long list of tests that electric vehicles must pass indicating that they are not showing oncoming traffic.