Automotive headlights started out burning acetylene, before regular electric lightbulbs made them obsolete. In due time, halogen bulbs took over, before the industry began to explore even newer technologies like HID lamps for greater brightness. Laser headlights stood as the next leap forward, promising greater visibility and better light distribution.
Only, the fairytale didn’t last. Just over a decade after laser headlights hit the market, they’re already being abandoned by the manufacturers that brought them to fruition. Laser headlights would end up fighting with one hand behind their back, and ultimately became irrelevant before they ever became the norm.
Bright Lights
Laser headlights were first announced by BMW in 2013, with the German company promising the technology would be available on its new halo car, the i8. Fellow German rivals Audi would end up pipping the Bavarians to the punch, launching the limited-production Audi R8 LMX with laser headlights just months before the i8 entered production. Both brands would later bring the technology to a range of luxury models, including sedans and SUVs.
The prime selling point of laser headlights was that they could project a very bright, very focused beam a long way down the road. As we’ve explored previously, they achieved this by using blue lasers to illuminate yellow phosphors, creating a vibrant white light that could be bounced off a reflector and directed up to 600 m ahead of the vehicle. They weren’t so useful for low-beams, with that duty usually passed off to LEDs. However, they were perfect to serve as an ultra-efficient long-throw high beam that wouldn’t disrupt other road users, albeit with the aid of steerable headlamp assemblies and camera-based tracking systems.
Laser headlights were more expensive to produce, but were also far more capable than any conventional bulb in terms of throw distance. They were also more compact than just about any other automotive lighting technology, giving automotive designers far more freedom when creating a car’s front end. They were even able to outperform LEDs in the efficiency stakes. And yet, both Audi and BMW would come to abandon the technology.
The culprit? Regulations. In particular, headlight rules enforced in the United States. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard rule 108 deems that headlight intensity must not exceed 150,000 candela, while beam range must not exceed 250 meters. These rules effectively mean that laser headlights can’t outperform older technologies without falling afoul of US regulations. The rules stand in stark contrast to European regulations, which allow headlights to reach up to 430,000 candela. In an echo of the sealed beam era, US regulations were once again stymying European innovation by being firmly stuck in the past.
Of course, US regulations don’t apply everywhere. European automakers could have kept pursuing laser headlight technology, however, other factors have also come into play. LED headlight technology has continued to improve, with newer models improving brightness and light distribution. Adaptive matrix LED headlights also allow sections of the headlight beam to be turned on and off at will to provide the best illumination without dazzling other road users.
To that end, laser headlights are facing decline. While a few models in the Audi and BMW lineups still feature the headlights, both automakers are phasing them out for the future. Speaking on the matter last year, BMW’s large-car product manager, Andreas Suhrer, noted that solely LED-based designs were the future. “At the moment, we still have laser lighting on the G26 and the X7, but we don’t have future plans,” Suhrer stated. “The G60 and G61 do not have it, and the new 7 Series does not have it. I don’t think it’s completely done, but for the next models, we are making the LED Matrix lights our focus. The laser lights are pretty good with absolute range but the latest generation of Matrix LED lights does a better distribution.” Meanwhile, Audi released statements in 2024 noting that there were no plans to implement laser lighting modules in future product.
Ultimately, laser headlights were an expensive, fancy solution to a minor problem. Better high beams are surely a good thing, but given how rarely most motorists use them, they’re hardly a critical feature. Combine their high price and limited usability with the fact that one of the world’s largest car markets just made them useless, and it hardly made sense for Audi or BMW to continue pursuing this unique technology. They will go down as a luxury car curio, to be written about by bloggers every few decades as a reminder of what was once deemed cutting edge.
“Better high beams are surely a good thing, but given how rarely most motorists use them, they’re hardly a critical feature.”
Those in rural areas might differ.
Hah! You beat me to it by two minutes. I shouldn’t have taken so long to check my punctuation :)
“Most” motorists aren’t in rural areas. It is a factual statement.
I came to say I use my high beams maybe 2 days a year, unless you count flashing them on other road idiots (and I wouldn’t want to use high powered lasers for that).
“Better high beams are surely a good thing, but given how rarely most motorists use them, they’re hardly a critical feature”
In crowded Europe, perhaps. When I lived in the UK, it was rare that I could keep my high-beams on for more than a few seconds at a time, even on long motorway stretches at ungodly hours of the night.
But which major consumer economy elsewhere on earth has famously wide-open, sparsely-populated states (there’s a clue) wherein one can drive for miles along arrow-straight roads without seeing any other cars, but having to keep a close eye out for wildlife leaping into the road? Hmm, that’s a puzzler :)
I remember reading/downloading from Usenet about 30 years ago a long essay on the dire state of the US automobile lighting regulations, and how Federal standards, with their setting of minimum and maximum capabilities, had condemned the country (in those days) to feeble sealed-beam units while the rest of the world raced ahead with halogens, HIDs, and fancy shapes/designs.
Seems like maybe, in the immortal words of the Propellerheads, history’s repeating?
https://youtu.be/yzLT6_TQmq8
i don’t actually understand if/how the laser headlights aim but it seems like they get their long ‘throw’ distance by not ‘wasting’ light illuminating the sides. so if you’re looking for deer, i’m not sure the laser headlights really help
I want the bulb headlights to come back
I like my retinas, I don’t want 9 billion lumen headlights to burn them
This.
yeah it’s infuriating that the US regulators are not focused on any of our real problems. headlights that are too bright in you eyes, and turn signals that are invisible from most angles. absolute deluge of both problems at the moment, and the regulators are standing still
As a compact-car driver who REGULARLY finds himself staring into the opposite traffic SUV’s acetylene torches (aka “LED headlights”) square at my eye level all I can say “regulations is a GOOD THING”.
Try doing that (staring at the bright LEDs of the opposite traffic) on some long unlit stretches of, say, PA Turnpike (some stretches have two lanes – no exits – though, thankfully, same sane thinking forced to have a barrier separating the two – but not tall enough for the ubertall SUVs to shine their torches over the barrirer.
Also, try country roads with no shoulder and two lane traffic whilst driving a compact car.
The last thing we need (in the US) complement those Conestoga Wagons of the cars with freaking laser beams shining straight into my eyes. (Look up Conestoga Wagon while you are at it – the SUVs of the Wild West pioneers).
Speaking of freaking lasers, they DO gradually fry one’s retire, albeit, unnoticeably, right? Because quantum dots. Even in the unfocused ones (like in the humble laser pointers).
Honestly, I may consider installing one of those trucks’ LED bars above my Nissan Versa’s roof to light up the SUV’s windshields with magna force of lightning just for the heck of it. There is plenty of cheap LED flashlights I can scavenge for pennies (relatively speaking) and almost all have “direction reflectors” to shine these well. I may even consider adding a fresnel lens to make sure all the light arrives where it should with laser precision. I am that edgy when driven to extremes with “off the market” upgrades shining straight into my eyes at night.
Autocarrot for said to type the thin GS I didn’t nintendo.
Lasers DO gradually fry one’s RETINA albeit, not really noticeably (at first), but cumulatively (over the years) to dim your vision little by little. Quantum dots (the squiggly things you see whilst shining laser into a wall), even reflected (off the wall) still arrive in you retina, because that’s what they do.
Shining while bunch of squiggly quantum dots far down the road is probably a terrible idea to start with. Because incoming traffic eventually gets near and whoever is driving the thing is gradually getting closer and closer to the source.
That’s not what quantum dots are. That’s “subjective speckle” you see in laser pointers. It’s caused by wavelength-scale imperfections in the surface causing destructive interference in the reflected light due to extremely narrow color bandwidth.
The blue laser+yellow phosphor+reflector would not exhibit the same behavior.
I can’t find the video now, but I just saw a setup where he’d flash a spotlight at drivers blinding him, then strobe it if they didn’t correct it. Mostly it just strobed every tractor trailer that passed.
My ideal would be to standardize the height off the road that headlights may be. Giant ass truck? Headlights at 24in off the road.
Or require the adaptive blocking tech that automatically shades the headlight in the range where it sees oncoming headlights. My guess is the market for hacks disabling that feature might explode though, like the people who disable daytime running lights.
Next time take your antipsychotics before posting 🙂