Mahendra Somasara Dassanayake

Challenges of adopting new Lighting Technologies on Emerging Markets

Emerging markets and South America in particular, has quickly become the cornerstone of major automotive companies in recent years. Currently, all major players are located in the region, and this has created an excellent environment for developing market-tailored products. The trend in the design and technology community is one which allows the final customer to improve his own safety and reduce overall power consumption. Throughout the entire automotive industry, the lighting system has always had a very important role to play during its long history. In the past 50 years, vehicular lighting has achieved an important status due to its close relationship by enhancing passenger and vehicle security. In addition, there is still room for improvement in the halogen front lighting system. Particularly, it is of utmost importance to highlight the implementation of NEO (new efficient optics) from Valeo in a joint venture with Ford. This paper will show the benefits that can be achieved by adopting this technology, since it will be the first implementation in the market (Worldwide) and more important will be launched in South America, an emerging market. This technology enhances the overall headlamp performance, better package and a unique design. INTRODUTION Recently, particularly in South America, emerging markets have quickly become the trend and the market to be observed and invested on. Currently, the estimated car production for the 2009 calendar year is 2 million vehicles. It is important to highlight that the current crisis has reduced this number as well; the previous estimate was around 3 million from 2009 according to ANFAVEA’s (National Association of Vehicle Manufactures) yearly report. Also, it is worth mentioning that the market is growing in both the domestic and export segments. However, more than 85% of the domestic market is focused on B cars, which is a segment mainly driven by cost, not appearance or comfort. The challenge for the engineers is to find solutions to upgrade a particular system or to introduce a new technology into the market without affecting the vehicle’s final cost. NEO (new efficient optics) is an alternative to achieve a better performance, package and styling.