Laser Headlights Promise More Intense, Controllable Beams 376
cartechboy writes "Soon, your new car's headlights will be powered by lasers. The 2015 BMW i8 is entering production, and it's the first vehicle to offer laser headlights. These new beams offer a handful of advantages over LED lighting, including greater lighting intensity and extending the beams' reach as far as 600 meters down the road (nearly double the range of LEDs). The beam pattern also can be controlled very precisely. Plus, laser lights consumer about 30 percent less energy than the already-efficient LED lights. Audi is among the short list of other auto manufacturers to promise laser lights in the near future. But the coolest part of all this? When you turn on a set of these new headlights, you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"
..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'" (Score:2)
*slow sarcastic clapping* bravo, sir/madam. bravo.
Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'" (Score:5, Funny)
just remember to turn them off before cresting a hill, because otherwise you will be fined and/or imprisoned for firing lasers into the sky in an effort to down aircraft.
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Except the headlight beams are not actually lasers.
Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'" (Score:5, Informative)
Right, talk about a bad headline. Laser-excited phosphors are a completely different thing than lasers, and that's a really good thing. It's not even a good idea to shine a laser pointer directly into your eyes for any length of time, can you imagine driving past a line of oncoming cars with laser headlights? Your vision would be lucky to survive the week. Not to mention the horrible, horrible dazzle of laser light.
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Car powers lasers. Lasers shine on phosphors. Phosphors emit wide-spectrum normal light at high efficiency.
Not sure how they get the increase in range, unless they're just a lot brighter (ugh, like existing high-intensity headlights aren't bad enough for everybody else's visibility.)
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They're new, more expensive and associated with sharks.
Re: ..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!' (Score:3)
Actually, based on the quality of Facebook's services, I'm led to believe it's more of a DERPA initiative.
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So when is a good time? I use a flagger who walks in front of my car. If he doesn't see anyone walking his dog, he gives me the signal to turn on the brights.
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On an open highway where there are no street lights is the only time that I can imagine high beam lights being appropriate. There is absolutely no reason to use them in the city, except to piss people off.
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If you're screaming "Fire the lasers" then you're an idiotic BMW driver. Those clueless morons who have no idea as to the rules of the road, good manners, or the English language. It is "Shoot the lasers". You can only 'fire' a firearm - as it is the method of introducing fire to the propellant to launch the projectile.
Although saying that - burning down their superbright blinding headlights would be a bonus for other road users, so perhaps "firing the lasers" would be beneficial, along with firing the re
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I should think "Release the photons" would be more sensible, and shooting implies some active approach to attack something, which as everyone knows, BMW drivers use the bulk of the BMW for (at least I think its that, some people day they're just rubbish at driving properly)
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I should think "Release the photons" would be more sensible
But you can already release photons with regular non-laser headlights. Nothing new about that.
Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:..you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'" (Score:4, Insightful)
I cry with joy every time I see a BMW's turn signals actually being used. I softly tell myself "Yes! Somebody that ACTUALLY DESERVES such a fine car!"
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I find Lexus drivers to be more annoying than BMW drivers, at least around here. I've always wanted to ask one if they had to pay extra for their "Asshole Card" or if they get it free with the car.
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Yes, but there is something different about them. The guy driving in the 15 year old Maxima is driving in a more "got nuthin' to lose" style... using the shoulder as an extra lane, that sort of thing. Reckless and stupid. The BMW driver is more of a "get off my road!" kind of driver. More tailgating and anger than sheer recklessness.
Shark (Score:3)
Gotta get these on the Hyundai Tiburons!
Side benefit (Score:4, Funny)
I'm down for laser headlights if I can program in the exact speed the cops with laser speed detectors get to see.
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Hack the lights, fry the next guy who cuts me off or goes to slow.
Driving in Boston is a contact sport.
Re:Side benefit (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure it's stuck at 186,000 miles/second.
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Aim them at a plane :)
Better make sure your annoying neighbour does it. Then alert the FBI. Profit!
brighter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh and beta sucks.
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New car headlights are horribly bright, hurt my eyes, and the LED taillights are almost as bad.
Re:brighter? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Right, I have in the past had to sit at a green traffic light for a while because I couldn't see, simply because the car in front of me's LED brake lights were embedded in the centre of my vision.
Re:brighter? (Score:5, Interesting)
My take on it as well.
There is a lights arms race on the streets. I wonder if we already passed the point of "more is safer".
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There is a lights arms race on the streets. I wonder if we already passed the point of "more is safer".
Apropos fire the lasers: I think I'll wait until I'll be able to scream "fire the photon torpedoes".
You're living in Shatner days.... (Score:2)
Dude, Quantum Torpedoes [memory-alpha.org] are where it's at...
Photon Torpedoes are so like the original NCC-1701
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Re:brighter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Strongly agree. The problem is (in the UK at least) the limit to legal brightness is set in watts; it needs to be set in lumens.
Re:brighter? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well we're already deep into an impact safety arms race...
I wonder if part of it is that BMW/Merc drivers simply enjoy blinding the poors they drive past, forcing them to slow down and pull to the side to avoid an accident. It must inflate their sense of superiority for their car to inconvenience so many other people.
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"Hg" is short for Mercury.
Re:brighter? (Score:5, Interesting)
This.
The bright headlamp race has to stop. I drive on the highway daily for a total of a 50 mile(~80km) commute. I cant tell you the number of times I have been blinded by HID's and other overly bright headlamps. My coworker` even tinted the windows on his car...for night driving! Its that bad.
You want my take? Idiotically bright headlamps are most always found on luxury vehicles. Its a way for the driver to tell everyone on the road "Look at me, I'm rich!" Automakers have no reason to justify such intense light other than entering into a pissing match with each other. You also have the tools who leave the high beams on because, why not they paid for them? And its next to impossible to drive in front of such an asshole with HID's.
My thought: Fuck all of you luxury car makers and you're sick headlamp arms race. No one needs them - PERIOD.
Re:brighter? (Score:4, Informative)
Most bad HID lights are aftermarket junk.
But this system looks pretty good. It has a camera that looks out for oncoming lights and dims them. If done really well, since it's laser, it could shape the beam to avoid oncoming cars while still lighting up the rest of the road. It would be nice if that were on all cars.
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Laser headlights do not direct laser beams onto the road. The laser is used to pump a phosphor that produces white light.
I have an Audi TT with HID lamps. When supplied by the factory, law requires that they have to respond to oncoming traffic and tilt the beams downward. The control system in my car reacts to bumps in the road, and turns the beams in the direction the car is turning. When starting the car the system tests itself- the headlights dip downward, then tilt inward, then tilt back up.
If you'r
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The control system in my car reacts to bumps in the road, and turns the beams in the direction the car is turning.
This is what car manufacturers claim, but it's nowhere near true. The typical slewing time for the optics looks to be about 0.5 seconds from "standard" to "dipped", and that's way too slow for reacting to bumps/potholes when you're going faster than 30. I regularly get blinded by Audis, BMWs and Volvos with factory HIDs, but Mitsubishi seems to be worst. It could perhaps be that they are just worst at controlling chromatic abberations (since blue light blinds you more).
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Re:brighter? (Score:5, Informative)
Laser pointers are quite different than laser headlights.The key is divergence. A laser pointer is tuned to spread out as little as possible with distance and can therefore be quite powerful at long distances. A headlight, through the use of dispersing phosphors and or lenses is designed to spread out and cover much more area. Illuminating a 1/2 inch circle 600 yards down the road is not much use.The key is that laser light is more controllable. Perhaps directing more light lower down along the road. Laser headlight will use a laser initiator but when the beam comes out of the headlight it will be far from cohesive.
Re:brighter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, indeed, but you've already mentioned the main problem: "quite powerful". If the light is more concentrated, it will also be more concentrated when it hits the eye of the driver in the other direction.
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Seriously, if you're going to get mad because that points about which there is uncertainty get discussed on a web forum, you should find another way of life.
And you don't respond to the problem either. You only say: trust these people. They know what they are doing.
So, let's start with a simple example. I'm sure that the engineers know how to design a system that raises and lowers electric windows. How come there are bugs in these systems? How come people can't close their windows after battery upgrades? Ho
Re:brighter? (Score:4, Interesting)
A headlight, through the use of dispersing phosphors and or lenses is designed to spread out and cover much more area.
What if you get into an accident that destroys the outer housing of the light (containing the dispersin phosphors and/or the lenses) while leaving the source intact?
So you've got a "deathray" shooting out from the accident scene wanting to involve more cars, until somebody turns it off...
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Audi's demos at CES also included sensors that detect oncoming vehicles' headlights and actively steer the lasers away from them to avoid dazzling.
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I love the sound of that tech, but it strikes me as something which, unless you are altruistic, you mostly hope other people buy since few people place any blame on themselves for accidents caused by their headlights.
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Do they also detect pedestrians and cyclists?
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You mean it will spread out until Billy Joe Bob takes it apart and "improves" it so that it becomes more like a light saber ready to blind you just as soon as you manage to tick Billy Joe Bob off. This cannot end well.
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If someone uses a telescope to spy on animals in a forest and suddenly such a car shines on him, much more power is collected by the large first telescope lens/mirror.
A well deserved punishment, I might say, for breaching privacy rights of the said animals.
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Yeah this was definitely my first thought. I'm in a short car..if an suv has bright lights...bad experience.
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I can't be the only one who thinks that the headlights on certain luxury cars are already annoyingly bright to other drivers. Now we get to be blinded by lasers, great...
Oh and beta sucks.
This, aren't headlights bright enough, what they need to do is to illuminate more of the road and surrounds (as in the side of the road where people jump out in front of cars from).
Instead now I'm going to have a BMW prick playing with his lasers as he pootles down the highway either doing 20 more or 20 less than the traffic.
Two Strikes (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't be the only one who thinks that the headlights on certain luxury cars are already annoyingly bright to other drivers.
Yes they are. So why not make them more directional so you can get brightness in a more specific area without dispersal... I wonder what kind of light technology could make that possible.
Oh and beta sucks.
Can't get a boycott right either I see. The overall quality of writing on Slashdot has improved this week, why not joint the rest of them and increase it further.
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...only to be defeated by a hill in the road.
Every little bump one of these cars hits already is making me think they're flashing their high beams because the angle of the light that should be pointed at the road is now pointing in my eyes.
Making it even brighter? W...T...F...
Not blinded by laser but blinded nonetheless (Score:3)
Nonehteless I am betting such light would be forbbidden in many country in europe where the maximum intensity you can pump is limited by law. And rightfully so, the "normal range light
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Nonehteless I am betting such light would be forbbidden in many country in europe where the maximum intensity you can pump is limited by law.
BMW being a European company will take those limits into account in their production vehicles, don't worry.
And rightfully so, the "normal range light" are okish but the "long range" light are already quite blinding, and usually leave me blind fully for 3 to 4 seconds when one is oncomming and forgot to switch back to normal range light.
That's another matter. It's for a reason it's called "dipped" resp. "blinding" light. Now the problem for some areas, like what I see happening in China all the time, is that everyone likes to drive with blinding lights on at all times. I don't understand why - the result is that no-one can see anything properly. But then, it's not that those Chinese drivers care much about what's going on around them
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Nonehteless I am betting such light would be forbbidden in many country in europe where the maximum intensity you can pump is limited by law.
BMW being a European company will take those limits into account in their production vehicles, don't worry.
The problem is that the legal limit is (in the UK at least) 60 watts. As there lasers will emit many more lumens per watt than the incandescent bulbs in use when the law was written, this doesn't stop them being much too bright.
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The problem is that the legal limit is (in the UK at least) 60 watts. As there lasers will emit many more lumens per watt than the incandescent bulbs in use when the law was written, this doesn't stop them being much too bright.
So what you're saying is lawmakers didn't understand the technology they attempted to regulate, and ended up passing regulations that affect the wrong thing. (lumens vs watts) What a shock. Say it isn't so.
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Nonehteless I am betting such light would be forbbidden in many country in europe where the maximum intensity you can pump is limited by law.
It might have changed, but I believe that it's not the maximum light output that is limited but the power input.
So from tungsten filament that the law was written for to the thermodynamic limit gives about a 50x increase in brightness that is allowed.
Similar games for bicycle lights. The reason it's almost impossible to get a bicycle dynamo that will output more than
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absolutely, what I hate the most are the super brights on large SUVs when I'm driving in a smaller (lower down) car. there can be big distances where I'm completely blinded as the light is near my head level.
It gets even worse in europe where you have cars with RHS and LHS drive on the road (usually, headlights in the US have a slight angle to the right so your left headlight doesn't blind oncoming traffic as much).
The last thing I want is even brighter headlights. If current ones aren't bright enough for
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Seriously, I would love a mod that ads some smart-mirrors to my car and automatically reflects back really bright headlights at other cars. Just as effective as a spotlight but more ironic.
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Yay, another rich asshole on my tail with even brighter headlights. Awesome.
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... (unless he's in a go-kart or something.. Ariel atom maybe???)
Not necessarily: passing over the top of a hill, your headlight beam will be above the incoming traffic. Going down, there will be a moment when your beams will shine straight in the eyes of the drivers in the other lane.
Re:brighter? (Score:4)
how do you correct for various heights of cars (say, an AUDI Q7 vs an audi A3)? I am driving a non-SUV for long distances for the first time, and maybe I'm getting old, but I get blinded when there is an oncoming SUV with these modern headlights, far more than I remember when I was 16 in a car.
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As long as it works correctly. Given the half life of BMW electronics these days, I suspect that it will be fine for the first three weeks.
How is this different? (Score:3)
Audi tested lasers on sharks before BMW:
http://news.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
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Warning (Score:5, Funny)
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What if that nice bright laser hits a reflective object and then points toward a plane?
That same thing that happens when light from a normal (okay, a bit brighter) headlight points towards a plane.
I'm not sure whether you're imagining a couple of laser pointers taped to the front of the car projecting two coherent sub-centimetre dots onto the road 600m ahead, but... that's not what's happening. At all.
Laser defense (Score:2)
*sigh* (Score:2)
great.. (Score:3)
the xenons already burn my retinas.. It's bad enough they don't control the UV+ emissions from these things that well.. LASER light can cause serious damage.
Re:great.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The sun doesn't tailgate you at night.
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Not quite the same thing.. I don't make a habit of staring directly into the sun, so it does not shine directly into my eyes while my irises are wide open for night visiion..
nice and all.. (Score:3)
There is no laser light comming out (Score:4, Insightful)
Blue lasers positioned at the rear of the assembly fire onto a set of mirrors closer to the front. Those mirrors focus the laser energy into a lens filled with yellow phosphorus. The yellow phosphorus, when excited by the blue laser, emits an intense white light.
There is no coherent laser light coming out from the headlight.
Add a normal laser too (Score:2)
high-tech solution to the arms race (Score:2)
Install automatically controlled mirrors that will reflect the light back to the source once the intensity reaches a certain lumen value. That way either 1) You'll get the a-hole tail-gating to you dim his lights and back off 2) You'll cause him to get a taste of his own medicine and crash because of being blinded by his own stupid headlights. It could be cobbled together pretty cheaply.
It Burns! (Score:2)
Seriously I wonder what the power rating is on those lasers. If replacement lasers are cheap enough I can see a huge application for the maker crowd.
funny... (Score:4, Informative)
"already efficient LED headlights"
That are actually inefficient as hell. HID still blows them away for lumens output at power consumed. LED's only advantage is a nearly 60K mile life on a car, but replacement is $450 each instead of the $45.00 each for an HID setup, or $4.00 each for halogen.
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The source is my driveway. HID headlights on my old car versus the new LED ones on the new car. Old car is insanely brighter and drawing 2.7 amps (35 watts ish) per headlamp when running at 13 volts ( car off running off of battery measured at the battery terminals 12.9Volts) the new car they are drawing 3.5 amps and are visibly dimmer yet the same color. (45.5watts around 4500K based on the known color of the replacement bulb I purchased recently for the old car.
Both cars aimed at the SAME white ga
Most important advantage not mentioned (Score:3)
With laser lighting, illumination in rain can be dramatically improved, but avoiding to shine the laser onto rain drops.
http://iq.intel.com/iq/33831801/future-headlight-technology-could-make-rain-disappear
Fun, wow (Score:4, Insightful)
So the focused ones that blind me every time they go over a bump in the road is now going to be even worse?
Great.
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Theoretically, none. The laser is all solid state, the phosphor is not a filament. It should outlast the car.
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high power LED's have a life span between 20,000 and 50,000 hours. The hotter they get the shorter the lifespan.
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LED's are also single colour. They work exactly like these lasers: a blue light and a yellow phosphor.
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There are flashlights with a single emitter that can cast a beam over 900 meters.
But can it throw the beam over the same area as the headlight? The more focused the bean the longer the throw the less area covered. It may only light up a few square ft. Is that useful as a headlight?
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An accident waiting to happen can be applied to anything sharp, hard, fast, heavy, chemicial, high voltage or high current or controlled by a human. What a stupid riposte to a cool new technology.
The dangers of this have aready been taken into consideration, being a lot of safeguards and cut offs that fail safe. Your response has been used against anything possibly dangerous that has ever existed or been created. You must be a conservative.
Re: Blindness / Bad Idea (Score:2)
Hear hear
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What a stupid riposte to a cool new technology.
Repeat that to the first person blinded by these headlights.
The dangers of this have aready been taken into consideration, being a lot of safeguards and cut offs that fail safe.
Hmmm... Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island. Your turn now -- tell me three great towering achievements of "safeguards and cutoffs that fail safe." :)
Your response has been used against anything possibly dangerous that has ever existed or been created. You must be a conservative.
Pleased to meet you! You must the laissez-faire capitalist. :)
And besides all this... I'm tired of all the rich kids with ultra-bright headlights making it unsafe for the rest of us to drive at night.
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Some safeguards and cutoffs that failed safe and prevented disasters:
- Countless runaway trains have been prevented by failsafe brakes (vacuum in the early days, air brakes today).
- Countless boiler explosions prevented by safety valves
- Several nuclear explosions prevented by failsafe arming mechanisms when the bomber carrying the nukes crashed.
There's three. The thing is you only get to hear about the failures. A failsafe working and preventing a disaster is not news so no one ever reports it. But I can g
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If "people might be hurt when there's an accident" was a reason not to do something we wouldn't have cars in the first place.
It's a laser illuminating a phosphor. First guess is that the laser is not designed to/doesn't have to stay in a tight beam for more than a few milli- or centimetres.
Imaginary problems (Score:3)
And what happens in an accident... when the lens is smashed open, when the blue laser beam accidentally shines into a first responder's eyes?
Will never happen. This is an imaginary failure mode. It's about as likely as the first responder being blinded by a unicorn fart.
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From the video I just watched, there's some kind of lens in front of the laser beam that disperses it into a wider light beam. The laser should only be thought of as a bulb, then.
Wrong idea.
The lasers only illuminate a phosphor emitter, which then produces the actual headlight beam. No laser light is emitted at all. It's more akin to the way a CRT works.
A thousand internets to the first one that figures out how to make the lasers scan the phosphors CRT-like to produce projected video. Stuck behind a semi for miles at night and bored? Just project a movie against the rear of the trailer ahead of you with your raster-capable headlights!
Strat
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Que the people whi argue that "this will cause people to drive much faster in unsafe conditions!". They said the same about seat belts and airbags.
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$500? are you talking the economy model 10 years from now? These are expected to cost nearly $2500 each.
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Then you will hate me. My motorcycle has a pair of 3W red led lights that blink 5 times then go steady for my brake light. It's to make the drooling moron car drivers actually SEE that I am stopping.
The reason tail lights are getting brighter is because car drivers are getting dimmer.
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It's BMW, they will add heaters to the headlight assemblies like they already do. Heated headlights, heated tail lights, heated mirrors, heated steering wheel. Oh and heated windshield washer fluid.
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Don't forget the heated seats that make it feel like you just peed in your pants.