What's the news?
Mercedes has just spent the past couple of hours waxing lyrical about its clever new LED lighting system, fitted to the updated CLS 'four-door coupé' and Shooting Brake. Right enough, it's a clever system (full LED headlamp unit, extra-fine blanking systems to keep full beam going without dazzling oncoming traffic and even a GPS link to tell the lights when specific items such as roundabouts are coming up, adjusting the beam's spread and throw accordingly), but the white-light elephant in the room was laser lights. With fellow German arch-rivals BMW and Audi both showing off high-tech laser-based lighting systems, is Merc trying to sell us yesterday's technology?
Well, not according to Gunther Fischer, Merc's chief lighting specialist. "Laser is only good for high beam applications you see. LED lights are much more adaptable, for items like blanking the lights for oncoming traffic and so on. For now, LED is, we believe, the most effective and efficient lighting system around and the one that gives the most benefit to our customers."
Merc's LED system uses individual lights arranged in a 16x8 grid pattern, which, according to Fisher, allows it to achieve ultra-fine blank spaces in the beam to avoid burning the retinas off the drivers of other cars. The lights are also mounted on gimbals that allow degrees of movement in all planes.
For all that high tech, it's clear that Mercedes regards LED systems as providing a much better bang for buck than lasers, both for the company on a costing basis and for customers perusing the options list. Fischer was reluctant to put a precise value on the gap between an LED system and a laser one, but admitted that in terms of costs, a single laser light element could be ten times the price of an entire LED headlamp unit.
The point was also made that under typical driving conditions in this part of the world, the LED system already provides far more high beam performance than is needed. While lasers can penetrate the darkness for up to 600 metres, Merc's LED system will throw light for 485 metres ahead, still 100 metres further than the best conventional light systems.
Anything else?
All of which doesn't mean that Mercedes is shunning laser tech. Audi and BMW's apparent lead in this area has certainly stung Stuttgart into action, but perhaps not in the direction you might think. "We are already working on laser lighting systems" Fischer told us, "but they will be for applications for which laser is might more suited, such as picking out the side of the road in dense fog."