MUNICH—Headlight technology in America is about to get smarter. When Audi’s Q9 SUV goes on sale here later this year, it will feature the automaker’s latest adaptive beam headlights, which manage the nifty trick of providing better, brighter illumination while reducing glare for both the driver and other road users. Such technology is familiar to us European readers, but it’s finally coming to our streets after years of lobbying and intensive, lengthy testing to meet new federal regulations. And after trying out the headlights during a recent trip to Europe, I can say, “It’s about time.”
Despite America’s reputation as an innovation superpower, we lag behind Europe and Japan in automotive lighting technology by decades, thanks to 1960s regulations that allowed only low- and high-beam headlights, nothing else. For years, OEMs like Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volvo lobbied the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow them to bring more modern technology to these shores, but to no avail.
First, it had laser high beam, which could project its rays much farther down the road than traditional halogen or xenon lights. Lasers are great, but adaptive driving beam technology is even cooler. Each headlight is actually a multipixel LED, and by turning off some of those pixels, the headlight beam can be shaped to hide the light to selectively dim oncoming vehicles rather than switching to low beam.
An illustration of Audi’s Digital Matrix LED headlights.
Credit: Audi
An illustration of Audi’s Digital Matrix LED headlights.
Credit: Audi
prove it
Toyota was the first company to ask the government for permission to import adaptive driving beam lights in 2013 – the same year Audi introduced the technology in the A8 in Europe – but it wasn’t until 2022 that the NHTSA finally agreed that the technology had major safety benefits and should be allowed on US roads. In Europe and Japan, where adaptive driving beam technology has been legal for several years, approval follows road tests by vehicle regulators and independent testing authorities.
But NHTSA said it was not stringent enough for the US, where automakers do not get type approval for new products but instead certify themselves, then tell the government they comply with safety rules. Instead, NHTSA created a long list of tests that the lights must pass to demonstrate that they do not dazzle oncoming traffic.
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