BMW to offer LASER headlights

[freshmeat]

I wonder if Audi will work on advancing their LED tech further or drop it completely and adopt this. Claims to be 1,000 times brighter and twice as efficient as LEDs:

Traditional xenon (F10 5-series):


From i8 concept:


We've got good news for you if you've found your life suspiciously lacking in lasers. BMW plans to unveil new lighting technology within the next two to three years that uses highly focused beams of light to illuminate a dark road, according to Inside Line. The news comes courtesy of Hanafi Abdul, an optical systems designer for BMW, who said that a system using a photonic process to create white light is currently ready for production and awaiting the correct application.

A version of the technology has already bowed on the i8 Concept, thought Abdul said that the laser lighting system could arrive in dealerships before the production i8 heads to market in 2013.

The process uses Gallium Nitride to create blue light, which is then converted to white light with the help of a phosphor disc. So, why go laser? BMW claims that the system is 1,000 times brighter and 100 times smaller than traditional LED lighting while being twice as efficient. The system is said to have an average life span of around 10,000 hours.

[NVRL8R8]

I just got word from an insider with Audi AG that Audi will soon be using Kryptonite lighting! Nothing will, nor can ever be equivalent to this!! I have been told it will work something like this... As you are driving, it will take power from every car within a 1 million mile radius and literally weaken their headlight beam and be transcended to yours. Talk about technology! Can't wait!!

[zondar]

LED's are already pretty near monochromatic.

Get out your incandescent flashlight and your LED one. Now search for a screw you dropped behind the copy machine. With the LED, you are practically blind. Sure, it's bright, and it's that impressive pure blueish white light, but the screw stays lost. Then, with that firelight/sunlight that the incandescent light gives off, the kind of light your eyes are adapted to, you can actually see.

Lasers, almost by definition, are extremely monochromatic (only one wavelength of light is present). Maybe they pull the same trick as with LED's - using ultraviolet to excite a phosphor, which would yield at least a little bit of a spread spectrum of light. In that case, they wouldn't be functionally dissimilar to LEDs.

And per this hack's regurgitated "facts", our poor-old non-laser lights that are 1,000 times less bright would require roughly 200 HP just to turn on! Right.

Nah, lasers would just be marketing. And it won't even come with a frickin shark, either!

I've got to say, though, that the LED headlights on my car are pretty nice.

Cheers.

[M3R8]

I don't know what those three red dots are, but I see what looks like a standard Xenon headlight lens right next to it...

[willyjp]

when this came up in a recent thread...
BMW developing laser headlights
my comment was....
So how do you get white light out of a laser? The whole principle of laser light dictates that the emitted light will be monochromatic (a single wavelength) and coherent (all waves emitted in synch). It is also radiates in virtually parallel "rays", so to get anything but a dot (and a blue, green, yellow or red one at that) projected down the road you would have to have a major diffuser of some kind.

I suspect that possibly what they are talking about here is using laser radiation as an exciting source (of something) that emits non laser light. Laser light would NOT make a good headlight!!!
(makes for good marketing B.S. though)

that is still the only conclusion one could draw about lasers as headlights!

[sapien]

i'm charging my laser!

[SebringSilver]

Nah, lasers would just be marketing. And it won't even come with a frickin shark, either!

ROFL!! Hilarious!

[CALBenzo]

I just got word from an insider with Audi AG that Audi will soon be using Kryptonite lighting! Nothing will, nor can ever be equivalent to this!! I have been told it will work something like this... As you are driving, it will take power from every car within a 1 million mile radius and literally weaken their headlight beam and be transcended to yours. Talk about technology! Can't wait!!

LOL!!! I was hoping they would be strong enough to burn holes in things.

[Europrice]

My V1 is going to love these new headlights about as much as it loves Infinitis

[freshmeat]

I don't know what those three red dots are, but I see what looks like a standard Xenon headlight lens right next to it...

This one is of the actual laser tech from BMW's recent i8 concept: