It might just be me, mainly because I drive an "old" car that doesn't dim/adjust my rear view mirror based on others drivers lights, but I find the uber brightness of other drivers lights to be a real pain these days. Often on the motorway I struggle to see ANYTHING as i'm being constantly blinded by other drivers high power lights behind me and when oncoming. I get its meant to be a safety feature, but for a lot of other road users it's a real nuisance to be blinded on a daily basis.<p>A good solution would be for modern cars to detect ambient light and adjust accordingly. On a well lit highway with lots of other road users, there's no reason to have these things turned up to 11 all the time. They could safely dial back to 3 or 4.
My understanding has always been that lasers have a very low efficiency. I don't understand how it can possibly be more efficient to use a laser than an LED. But maybe my thinking dates back to the days of gas discharge lasers and solid state lasers are just that more efficient?
> Like Xenon headlights, power is immediately cut to the laser headlights in the event of any damage.<p>As a software engineer this statement really bugs me. Once something is damaged in the real world you can't assume control over the system anymore. The part that cuts or provides the power to the laser might have been the thing damaged. Maybe if they had added a qualifier like "power should be cut" instead of such certitude.
"BMW says its laser system is 1000 times brighter than LED headlights but uses half the power." Yeah, that's bull, unless they're using some very creative definition of "brighter". LED headlights put out about as much light as do standard halogen incandescents, about 1000-1500 lumens per fixture. A million lumens? You'd be hard pressed to tell that apart from the sun. Also theoretically impossible, as LEDs are already at 10-25% maximum luminous efficacy.
I googled "yellow phosphorus," and this page, run by an Angelo State University professor, says that it's the same as white phosphorus, which I understood to be dangerous.<p><a href="http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/demos/burning_phosphorus/burning_phosphorus.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/demos/burning_phospho...</a><p>The page explains: "White phosphorus is highly reactive, and spontaneously ignites at about 30°C in moist air. It is usually stored under water, to prevent exposure to the air. It is also extremely toxic, even in very small quantities."<p>Aside from cutting power to the headlights, I wonder how BMW keeps the white phosphorus from causing trouble during a crash.
Bear with me here-- I understand lasers to be highly specific wavelength diode light that is bounced around in a combination of prisms and mirrors to create highly concentrated, highly directional light.<p>In this case, it's then diffused again through a yellow phosphorus lens.<p>I'm not doubting the numbers in efficiency gain, but I'm having a hard time figuring them out. Seems that there can only be loss from converting this light "back and forth" (but more than likely I don't understand how lasers work).
Be interesting to see how these compare in the real world to my current favorite headlights, the Hella brand units fitted to higher end Volkswagens since 2009.<p>They're a much better "daylight" approximation than comparable systems, e.g. the units fitted on the Jaguar XF are pretty jarring in comparison.<p>The beam shape adjusts based on roadspeed and window wiper activity, the rain pattern is <i>excellent</i> when snow is falling.<p>For the manufacturer the part is cheaper than comparable high end units, partly due to removing the need for external ride height sensors. Most HID setups have a ride height sensor on the front suspension and one on the rear, the Hella units have gyroscopes packaged inside the cluster removing the need for external parts.<p>The final winning point for me is the freedom left to the manufacturer in designing the rest of the headlight cluster around the HID unit. Consequently replacing any other bulbs in one of these units is complete child's play. Contrast this with 0.5 hours "book time" for the new BMW X5 - the front bumper has to be removed (involves disconnecting headlight washer pipes and plenty more besides).
I don't get all this commotion about laser lights and their 1000x efficiency when that's just a concept maybe 5 years in the future. The lightspot technology (looking with IR cameras for people and highlighting them, so that drivers see them 112 feet sooner) seems much more interesting and should safe a lot more lives than lights with different technology that scale better.
I'm concerned about the responses in this article. I drive on the same roads every day and have never experienced an issue with other cars having very bright normal lights to the point of blinding me. Perhaps they should get their vision checked and see whether it is safe for them to drive at night. It may be that their eyes are too senstive for it to be safe.
Wait for the Chinese clones of this that every idiot will retrofit to their car, thereby endangering everyone on the road like the do now with their illegal blue headlights.