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BMW’s i8 Laser Headlights Will Be Provided by Osram

It’s a very well known fact that car manufacturers these days are mostly assembling companies that put together a couple thousand parts from different makers, to create a vehicle. The more complex the car, the more suppliers the company needs. Therefore, you can imagine just how many pitch in to create the i8.
BMW i8 Laser Lights 1 photo
Photo: BMW
BMW is actually providing a minimal amount of parts to the end product, most of them coming from a variety of companies. Even the Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer material that is used predominantly on the plug-in hybrid sports car is imported from SGL’s plant in Moses Lake that is, admittedly, run in collaboration with the Germans.

Basically, the Munich-based company is providing the electric motor, internal combustion unit on the rear axle and a couple of other parts, leaving the rest to all sorts of suppliers.

In case of the world’s first laser headlights fitted on a production car, these are manufactured by Osram, according to Automotive News Europe, one of the world’s biggest companies in the field of lighting. Actually, its subsidiary, Osram Opto Semiconductors, that is specialized in LEDs, is the world’s second largest manufacturer in the field.

However, laser lights are even better than LEDs. According to BMW, the i8’s laser lights use half the energy while emitting 170 lumens (a lumen is a unit of visible light) per watt, 70 percent more than conventional light-emitting diodes.

Furthermore, the laser high-beams will cover up to 600 meters in length while conventional LEDs will stretch as far as 300 meters. Unfortunately, due to their high-lumen count, they can only be used at speeds over 60 km/h (37 mph) and only if the sensors installed onboard do not detect any other light ahead. Accordingly, they also cannot be used to flash and are illegal in the US for the time being.
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