Laser Headlights Promise More Intense, Controllable Beams

cartechboy writes "Soon, your new car's headlights will be powered by lasers. The 2015 BMW i8 is entering production, and it's the first vehicle to offer laser headlights. These new beams offer a handful of advantages over LED lighting, including greater lighting intensity and extending the beams' reach as far as 600 meters down the road (nearly double the range of LEDs). The beam pattern also can be controlled very precisely. Plus, laser lights consumer about 30 percent less energy than the already-efficient LED lights. Audi is among the short list of other auto manufacturers to promise laser lights in the near future. But the coolest part of all this? When you turn on a set of these new headlights, you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"

Comments

Side benefit

[SuperKendall]

I'm down for laser headlights if I can program in the exact speed the cops with laser speed detectors get to see.

Re:Side benefit

[DoofusOfDeath]

I'm pretty sure it's stuck at 186,000 miles/second.

brighter?

[lecoupdejarnac]

I can't be the only one who thinks that the headlights on certain luxury cars are already annoyingly bright to other drivers. Now we get to be blinded by lasers, great...

Oh and beta sucks.

Re:brighter?

[Fusselwurm]

My take on it as well.

There is a lights arms race on the streets. I wonder if we already passed the point of "more is safer".

Re:brighter?

[jklovanc]

Laser pointers are quite different than laser headlights.The key is divergence. A laser pointer is tuned to spread out as little as possible with distance and can therefore be quite powerful at long distances. A headlight, through the use of dispersing phosphors and or lenses is designed to spread out and cover much more area. Illuminating a 1/2 inch circle 600 yards down the road is not much use.The key is that laser light is more controllable. Perhaps directing more light lower down along the road. Laser headlight will use a laser initiator but when the beam comes out of the headlight it will be far from cohesive.

Re:brighter?

[tgv]

Yes, indeed, but you've already mentioned the main problem: "quite powerful". If the light is more concentrated, it will also be more concentrated when it hits the eye of the driver in the other direction.

Re:brighter?

[ArsenneLupin]

A headlight, through the use of dispersing phosphors and or lenses is designed to spread out and cover much more area.

What if you get into an accident that destroys the outer housing of the light (containing the dispersin phosphors and/or the lenses) while leaving the source intact?

So you've got a "deathray" shooting out from the accident scene wanting to involve more cars, until somebody turns it off...

Re:brighter?

[gordo3000]

how do you correct for various heights of cars (say, an AUDI Q7 vs an audi A3)? I am driving a non-SUV for long distances for the first time, and maybe I'm getting old, but I get blinded when there is an oncoming SUV with these modern headlights, far more than I remember when I was 16 in a car.

Re:brighter?

[Simon Brooke]

Strongly agree. The problem is (in the UK at least) the limit to legal brightness is set in watts; it needs to be set in lumens.

Re:brighter?

[Oligonicella]

The ones with the blue tint are very painful.

Re:brighter?

[GameboyRMH]

Well we're already deep into an impact safety arms race...

I wonder if part of it is that BMW/Merc drivers simply enjoy blinding the poors they drive past, forcing them to slow down and pull to the side to avoid an accident. It must inflate their sense of superiority for their car to inconvenience so many other people.

Re:brighter?

[LoRdTAW]

This.
The bright headlamp race has to stop. I drive on the highway daily for a total of a 50 mile(~80km) commute. I cant tell you the number of times I have been blinded by HID's and other overly bright headlamps. My coworker` even tinted the windows on his car...for night driving! Its that bad.

You want my take? Idiotically bright headlamps are most always found on luxury vehicles. Its a way for the driver to tell everyone on the road "Look at me, I'm rich!" Automakers have no reason to justify such intense light other than entering into a pissing match with each other. You also have the tools who leave the high beams on because, why not they paid for them? And its next to impossible to drive in front of such an asshole with HID's.

My thought: Fuck all of you luxury car makers and you're sick headlamp arms race. No one needs them - PERIOD.

Re:brighter?

[Quila]

Most bad HID lights are aftermarket junk.

But this system looks pretty good. It has a camera that looks out for oncoming lights and dims them. If done really well, since it's laser, it could shape the beam to avoid oncoming cars while still lighting up the rest of the road. It would be nice if that were on all cars.

Re:brighter?

[MoronBob]

And there seems to be a big assumption that these headlights will never be misaligned like 4 out of 5 cars on the road today.

Warning

[JazzXP]

Do not look into headlight with remaining eye.

Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"

[davester666]

just remember to turn them off before cresting a hill, because otherwise you will be fined and/or imprisoned for firing lasers into the sky in an effort to down aircraft.

Re:great..

[sonamchauhan]

The sun doesn't tailgate you at night.

There is no laser light comming out

[Ivan Stepaniuk]

Blue lasers positioned at the rear of the assembly fire onto a set of mirrors closer to the front. Those mirrors focus the laser energy into a lens filled with yellow phosphorus. The yellow phosphorus, when excited by the blue laser, emits an intense white light.

There is no coherent laser light coming out from the headlight.

funny...

[Lumpy]

"already efficient LED headlights"

That are actually inefficient as hell. HID still blows them away for lumens output at power consumed. LED's only advantage is a nearly 60K mile life on a car, but replacement is $450 each instead of the $45.00 each for an HID setup, or $4.00 each for halogen.

Fun, wow

[Maury Markowitz]

So the focused ones that blind me every time they go over a bump in the road is now going to be even worse?

Great.

Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"

[Noxal]

I cry with joy every time I see a BMW's turn signals actually being used. I softly tell myself "Yes! Somebody that ACTUALLY DESERVES such a fine car!"

Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"

[amalcolm]

Release the coherent photons?

Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"

[Immerman]

Right, talk about a bad headline. Laser-excited phosphors are a completely different thing than lasers, and that's a really good thing. It's not even a good idea to shine a laser pointer directly into your eyes for any length of time, can you imagine driving past a line of oncoming cars with laser headlights? Your vision would be lucky to survive the week. Not to mention the horrible, horrible dazzle of laser light.

Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"

[operagost]

the idiots who think that turning on their high beams any time that there isn't an oncoming car is a good idea

So when is a good time? I use a flagger who walks in front of my car. If he doesn't see anyone walking his dog, he gives me the signal to turn on the brights.