A few weeks ago during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Audi debuted their Sport Laserlight Quattro Concept vehicle. At the time, we focused on the self-driving feature of the car because that was the reason for the presentation, what with it driving itself onto the stage and all.
Now we want to talk about another cool aspect of the car that’s right in the name: laser headlights. You’ll recall from an earlier post how Audi is developing LED headlight technology that’s able to illuminate the road without blinding up to eight oncoming vehicles. Laser light will supplement this by taking the role of high beams.
As you might imagine from their new role, laser lights are very bright. They can illuminate twice as far as LED headlamps, providing about a quarter-mile of visibility. Lest you worry about blinding other drivers or imagine that you would have the ability to take on an Imperial Star Destroyer, we should point out exactly how laser lights work, just as Audi’s Head of Lighting Innovations, Stephan Berlitz, does in the video above.
Instead of beaming laser lights forward, Audi’s blue laser light shines backward onto a section of yellow phosphorous. The blue pinpoint of laser that a cat would love to chase around scatters as soon as it hits the phosphorous, turning into white light that makes the entire section of phosphorous light up. That white light is then reflected outward in front of the car to provide lighting far superior to today’s high beams.
Given that Audi has developed LED technology to spare oncoming drivers’ eyes from its headlamps, it’s likely that it will do the same for laser light. The Audi driver then gets even greater visibility at night while other motorists have their vision uncompromised. It’s an elegant solution for a more civilized age, and we’re proud to be a part of it.
According to Audi light chief Berlitz, we’re still a ways out from enjoying laser lights quite yet. Berlitz told Popular Mechanics that laser light is “at a point where LED were about 10 years ago.” We’re confident in Audi’s ability to bring this exciting new technology to market soon, and we’ll be glad when they do.