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Cars
Carmakers' brightest new idea: hi-tech lights
By Royal Ford, Globe Staff | November 7, 2004
They are the lights that let us see hundreds of feet farther than we could before. Some of them turn into corners as we turn the steering wheel, illuminating the deer about to dash across the road, the moose about to lumber, the child chasing a ball.
Today, headlights are brighter than ever (sometimes to the consternation of oncoming drivers), can last the lifetime of a car, and provide industry-altering safety features. There are lights that are closer than ever to natural daylight, and those, such as on the new Cadillac STS, that sense oncoming cars and dim themselves.
Yet the hottest lighting in the world of whiter lighting is an option that is called "adaptive lighting," meaning you can now buy cars -- Lexus and BMW among them -- that feature headlights that turn as the steering wheel turns, helping the car to "see" around corners.
Within this swiveling world are two types of headlights: halogen (with a high-performance variation), and high-intensity discharge headlights that come standard or can be installed by the car owner as after-market accessories.
As explained by Stephanie Anderson, manager of corporate communications for Danvers-based Osram Sylvania, halogen lights use the same filaments as the light bulbs at home; they are what rattles inside a broken bulb. In halogen headlights, however, the "bulb" is filled with inert gases that prolong the life of the filament, making them far more efficient, Anderson explained. Most cars sold today have this type of headlight.
At the top end are high-intensity discharge (HID) lights, which have no filaments and use gas under pressure, ignited in an electrical arc, to produce the "whitest" light currently available for cars. These are also called xenon lights, in reference to their gas content.
In between are lights such as Osram Sylvania's SilverStar, a high-performance halogen light that burns hotter and whiter than standard halogens.
The world of lighting is rocketing ahead, even as it reaches back to the past, in which Osram Sylvania has left a well-lighted trail: first halogen light in the United States, on the 1979 Lincoln Versailles; first HID on the 1997 Lincoln Mark VIII.
Light is considered brighter and more useful the "whiter" or closest to natural sunlight it is, said Anderson, and the hotter it burns, the whiter the light.
The effect is that, while most of us think we see white or, sometimes annoyingly, "blue" lights coming at us, what we are really seeing are either yellow halogen lights (watch for this and you will see that the lights you thought were white are actually yellow) or HID white -- so white and so close to sunlight's natural aura that we "see" blue as we would in daylight.
The difference in cost between HID lights (standard on some luxury cars) and the SilverStar (an aftermarket option only) is that the HIDs cost $500 per pair and last the car's life. The high-performance halogens cost $40 per pair and should be replaced at least every couple of years.
Interestingly, Anderson pointed out that filament bulbs do not just "burn out" at the last second. They fade over time in a way most drivers may not notice.
Change in the world of lighting occurs in a way that many do not notice. Lights get brighter over time, so noticing that your lights are brighter today may not be readily apparent.
And even those adaptive lights that may or may not turn out to be a viable idea can be looked at through the light of history.
Remember that Preston Tucker, with his ill-fated Tucker automobile, featured a swiveling center headlight in the 1940s. Three decades later, Citroen tried the same thing.
Perhaps it is now a concept whose time has come.
Royal Ford can be reached at ford@globe.com .
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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