“Chinese customers’ functional needs for vehicle lights also have their own unique characteristics.” Qin Kai, head of the Lighting Division of HELLA’s Nanjing R&D Center and Senior Director of Project Management for Headlight Tail Lights of the Lighting Division of the Asia-Pacific Region of Frua HELLA, said when communicating with the Automotive House, “While the demand for headlights in overseas markets focuses mainly on safety and comfort, Chinese customers go one step further on this basis, pursuing the interactive functions between headlights and pedestrians and other vehicles. ”
Recently, Freya Hella presented for the first time in China the global advanced lighting product series, which was only shown at CES 2024 before, and also unveiled a number of new lighting solutions tailored for the Chinese market, covering headlights, taillights, interior lighting and body lighting.
Fria HELLA has successfully developed a pioneering headlight concept that skillfully blends sustainability, functionality and performance in a cost-neutral manner.
Qin Kai further explains that ‘using less’ is reflected in HELLA’s use of recycled materials and the integration of trims and structural components to significantly reduce the number and weight of in-body components. Compared to similar headlight products on the market, which usually weigh more than 5kg, HELLA’s headlight weighs only 2kg, which is 70% more energy efficient.
“Longer” is reflected in our flexibility in lamp design, finding viable solutions to increase the interchangeability and reusability of components.
“Better” is reflected in the overall optimization of functional energy consumption, using high-performance or high-efficiency LED particles to ensure that functional regulations are met while minimizing energy emissions.
“In the face of the European Union’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and China’s proposed dual-carbon goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, OEMs, including many international and domestic ones, have also set their own carbon neutrality targets. This sustainable headlight, can help customers make a significant contribution to achieving these goals.”
It is worth mentioning that all parts of this sustainable headlight are removable. This makes the repair process easier as the sealed method is discarded. For example, if an interior part is damaged, it can be directly removed and replaced without complicated operations.
The demand for lighting systems in China’s automotive market presents distinctive characteristics. While pursuing the basic functions of lights, such as safety and comfort, Chinese consumers pay more attention to the interactivity of lights, expecting lights to communicate effectively with pedestrians and other vehicles. For example, in terms of interior lighting, Chinese consumers tend to choose a wide range of lighting and colorful visual effects, with a view to making the interior space of the car a “third space” for life and adding interest to daily life. This unique demand also promotes the continuous innovation and development of automotive lighting technology.
For example, the RGB LED taillights created by Freya Hella are cleverly based on the three primary colors of red, green and blue, creating up to 256 color variations, creating both dynamic and colorful lighting effects. Whether it’s a welcome and farewell scene, a colorful animation effect after locking the car, during charging or as an anti-theft alarm, it can be easily realized.
Another HELLA Digital Solid Front Panel (FPS) utilizes a new foil manufacturing process and dynamic polyurethane surface treatment to give it a self-healing effect. The Digital Solid Front Panel is a highly complex module designed for the front of the vehicle, and is a design element that differentiates the EV brand through the use of lighting technology and a wide range of colors. Now in its third generation, the Digital Solid Front Panel has been updated with clearer images and richer colors.
Compared to technology development, defining scenarios is the difficulty that Freya Hella is currently facing. Chen Zheng explained, “The content can be infinitely customized, but the display form needs to be limited to a certain range. This will give OEMs, end-users and our suppliers a wide space for imagination, but also limit the technical solutions to an acceptable range. Whether it’s projection in front of the vehicle or display on panels, we’re trying to explore an efficient, cost-acceptable way of displaying. This requires us to have in-depth discussions with OEMs to identify application scenarios that end users find valuable and easy to implement.”
In the past year, the price war in China’s automotive market has continued to escalate, and the ever-shortening product iteration cycle has posed a challenge to suppliers. How to demonstrate suppliers’ professionalism, cost competitiveness, and comprehensive control of quality in such a context is a core issue that the industry must think deeply about and actively address.
“In the past, development standards in the automotive industry could be as long as three years or even longer, but today they have been shortened to one and a half years or even less. This means that we must complete all dimensions of headlight design, including design maturity, verification maturity, and matching maturity, in a shorter period of time and with quality and quantity. To this end, we have actively explored and implemented a new, flexible working model that allows us to synchronize multiple tasks and avoid as many risks and problems as possible, supported by our proven experience and systems.” Qin Kai stated.
In addition, Freya Hella has fine-tuned its production, from the beat of personnel to the rational layout of the production line. “Because improving utilization means reducing costs, which is a very crucial part. At the same time, we are also actively and openly learning from the experience of local headlight companies, constantly optimizing our workflow, focusing our efforts on work that has value, and simplifying processes that are cumbersome and do not produce value.”
And in Chen Zheng’s view, even if the industry environment is tough, he is willing to see the benign touch of competition, which pushes suppliers to do better and leaner. “The core of Freya Hella’s adherence has always been our quality system and commitment to our customers. We have always held to this bottom line in our value chain integration and collaboration with our supplier partners.”
“We need to recognize that the current market implosion is actually a knockout race. In this elimination game, the number of kings that will survive at the end is bound to be limited. We want Freya Hella to be one of them in the headlight industry, therefore, correcting our thinking, we will use the power of this trend to reform and improve ourselves and develop together with the industry.” Qin Kai concluded.
Post time: Sep-18-2024
