The Rise of LED's In Auto Manufacturing

The popularity of LED lighting in many applications has seen major car manufacturers including Audi, Cadillac, BMW, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and Ford offering colorful LED lights with new car models to attract customers.

Automotive lighting has seen few advances in the past 30 years, rather relying on the widely used incandescent options. However, new LED options have emerged in recent years. LED is an abbreviation of light-emitting diode. It is a semiconductor that can change electrical energy into visible light. The light-emitting efficiency can reach 80% -90%. New, more intelligent LED options can now be seen in automatic electronic products, now known as the fourth generation car luminescence.

Compared with the traditional light bulb, LED's main advantage is its lifespan. First of all, LED light life can last up to 50,000 hours in theory. In practice, it may be closer to 20,000 hours. Therefore, with the use of LED options, it's possible to never need to change the lights for the life of the vehicle. Another advantage is that LED's have a fast response time and can be lit without delay. LED's start time is only tens of nanoseconds, much shorter than incandescent bulbs. LED's are also energy saving. LED brake lights and turn signals can directly change electrical energy into light energy in the lower drive current, making it an eco-friendly option, not needing any other power. In addition, they will only need less than a quarter of the power of an incandescent lamp. The small size and compact structure of LED's allow for use in places where traditional lights just could not fit.

Auto LED's can be divided into two categories, lamps and decorative lights. Lamps include standard applications like instrument lights, front and rear turning lights, brake lights, back up lights, fog lamps and reading lamps. Decorative uses mainly include color changing lights for the side or bottom of cars.

The Market Prospects of Light-Emitting Diodes

Although the LED light source is still a relatively new alternative to conventional incandescent light source, the technology has matured and is continuing to mature veryly. The only disadvantage is that in some cases LED's can be more costly upfront. However, with advances in manufacturing and the rise of Chinese LED manufacturers, the hope is that LED's will become the goto lighting option for automotive manufacturers in the future. With so many advantages, LED's are almost certainly the future of auto lighting.