Deciphering LED car lights: car dashboard or full LED

　　The LED car light market can be divided into two major areas, interior and exterior. The so-called interior refers to the application in the car's interior. Since the late 1990s, LEDs have been used in the interior field, such as the familiar dashboard. The dashboard was originally some yellow light bulbs, and after the emergence of LEDs, they quickly replaced the light bulbs because of their rich colors. Around 2002 and 2003, with the maturity of medium and high-power LEDs, LEDs began to enter the automotive market in an all-round way. At present, the penetration rate of LEDs in dashboards is close to 100%, and there are very few cars using small bulbs. In the next few years, all car dashboards should use LEDs.

　　Another area of ​​automotive interior applications refers to some non-functional lighting, such as seat lights, door handle lights, reading lights, etc. In the past, these products were mainly 3-5W bulbs, but in order to meet the needs of energy conservation and environmental protection, the EU and the United States began to require LEDs to replace automotive interior lighting bulbs two or three years ago. The wattage of this LED application is greater than that of the instrument panel. The instrument panel is currently mainly based on red and yellow light or white light LED beads of about 0.1W. If it is this application, it is basically based on white light, the power will be around 0.5-1W, and the overall output value will increase. Another area is that air conditioning controllers, touch screens, etc. will also use LEDs.

　　The interior LED market is already a mature one, with an annual growth rate of a few percentage points. According to the data from 2013, the market size of interior and exterior was roughly the same, but in 2014, the market size of exterior exceeded that of interior, and the development of exterior will be faster.

　　Next, let's talk about the exterior. The exterior has higher requirements for LED quality than the interior. First, the exterior will affect safety, so there are regulations, but there are no regulations for the interior. The automotive industry has its own certification regulations for LEDs, which is aecq 101.

　　This regulation regulates all parts used in automobiles. For LEDs, it has requirements for high and low temperatures, dryness and humidity, etc. The entire lamp must comply with this regulation.

　　Exterior lights include overlight and rear lamp. Overlight refers to the forward light, and rearlamp refers to the taillight. Rear lamp is the earliest exterior product to be used and popularized. Rear lamp mainly includes several products. The first is the rear combination taillight. This product uses red and yellow LEDs, which are low in cost and quickly popularized. Since 2006-2007, cars have begun to use LED rear combination taillights. The second is the high-mounted brake light. The penetration rate of LEDs in this lamp is also very high. Currently, more than 80% of high-mounted brake lights use LEDs. The third is other lights such as license plate lights, rear fog lights, and reversing lights. In the past two years, the penetration rate of LEDs has also increased rapidly. The power of the LEDs used in this area is relatively high.

　　Overlighting refers to forward lights, and the penetration rate of LED in this area is increasing slowly. This area uses high-power white LED lamps, which are expensive. In terms of performance, forward lights are brighter and have higher requirements for LED light distribution. Therefore, it takes time for car lamp manufacturers to accumulate technology and develop LEDs from traditional bulbs, and the certification cycle is also relatively long. The first car model with LED forward lights appeared in about 2006, which was a high-end model such as Lexus, Audi, and Cadillac. The real big development of forward lights is that the EU has formulated regulations to install daytime running lights. When the car engine is turned on, the daytime running lights must be on, so the life requirements are relatively high. Ordinary LED car lights generally use halogen lamps, and the life of halogen lamps is less than 1,000 hours. The EU made it mandatory to install daytime running lights in 2011, and North America is 12 years. There are currently no mandatory regulations in China. From the perspective of car manufacturers, the cost of installing daytime running lights will not increase too much, but consumers may be very accepting. As we all know, there is still a gap between domestic brands and foreign brands in terms of engines and performance, but there is still room for improvement in terms of styling and lighting. Domestic brands are still very enthusiastic about this, and the penetration rate is increasing rapidly. The penetration rate of LEDs for other products such as front turn signals, high and low beams, and headlights has also shown a rapid upward trend since 2013.

　　From a global perspective, in 2013, halogen lamps accounted for about 80% of the high and low beams, HID xenon headlights accounted for about 15%, and LEDs accounted for only about 2%. However, LEDs may develop very rapidly in the next two to three years. We know that the headlights of high-end models of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi are basically LEDs. In 2015-2016, cars in the 100,000-200,000 level will use LEDs on a large scale. By 2020, we estimate that the penetration rate of LED headlights will increase to 20%, HID will shrink to 10%, and halogen will remain at around 70%.

　　In the field of DRL (daytime running lights), the penetration rate of LED in 2013 was about 30%, halogen and light bulbs accounted for 20%, and 50% of cars did not use DRL.