Most people don’t turn on their car’s headlights and think, I wish they were brighter. Shuji Nakamura is not most people.
The Nobel Prize-winning illumination scientist has spent the past five years developing a laser-based lighting system. His company, SLD Laser, says the new design is 10 times brighter than today’s LED lights, capable of illuminating objects a kilometer away while using less power than any current technology. And unlike a regular, dumb headlight, the laser can potentially be integrated into current and forthcoming driver-assistance systems.
Do headlights need to be brighter?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:31PM
Pretty much. At 90kph, you'd be doing that distance in 40 seconds, at 113kph is more like 30 seconds.
You need roughly 5 seconds at a minimum to drive safely, and 10 seconds is a more reasonable number. 30 seconds is significant overkill and in practice, you'd probably want to aim the headlight down so that it doesn't blind the drivers and oncoming traffic.
Typical headlights will reveal far more than they do, if you point them less at the road and more forward, but that runs the risk of blinding oncoming traffic an dcausing collisions.
The biggest benefit from this would be for the central part of the headlight illuminating the bits that are directly in front of you.