Frost & Sullivan Product Report: Lighting

Jan. 1, 2020
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that's a great thing for the automotive aftermarket.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that's a great thing for the automotive aftermarket.

Automakers and vehicle designers go to great lengths to make cars and trucks look desirable. When buyers don't agree with these styling choices, it's the aftermarket to the rescue.

The beauty of aftermarket parts is the ability to personalize a vehicle. One of the easiest ways to change a vehicle's appearance is lighting, which is a rare combination of form and function. Changing it not only alters the look of your vehicle, but also can improve forward visibility and provide more reaction time to following drivers.

Specialty lighting is a broad product category of assorted exterior and interior lights, including valve stem caps, neon tubes, colored bulbs and strobe lights. Other types of specialty lights include windshield wiper and washer nozzle lights, sweeper lights, grille lights and string lights.

Frost & Sullivan estimates the market for these various specialty lights was approximately $30 million in 2007 with future growth coming primarily from light-emitting diode (LED) based systems. A larger potential specialty lighting market can be found in front and rear lighting upgrades. The 2007 original equipment market for front and rear lighting was approximately $1.2 billion and $650 million, respectively.

Aftermarket lighting can upgrade new vehicles as part of the customization process at purchase, plus there's the potential to upgrade or replace headlights and taillights on the 250 million vehicles on the road.

Like most original equipment trends, aftermarket lighting tends to follow styling and technology cues from high-end luxury vehicles, and therein lies an opportunity for LED-based systems.

Incandescent bulbs, halogen bulbs, high intensity discharge lights and LEDs form the basis of modern headlight technology. These bulbs are then coupled with various methods for directing the beam, either via the lens, a complex reflector or a projection system.

Each light source and reflector combination provides different looks and performance. Sealed beam headlights have a hazy, glazed-over look. Complex reflector headlights have a clear, jewel-like appearance. Projector headlights allow for smaller diameter lights.

Taillights aren't just for indicating braking or signaling turns. They're integral to the styling of a vehicle. Although taillights have a much more simple function than headlights, they provide just as much styling influence for the vehicle. Like headlights, they can use multiple light technologies and reflector systems. New taillights can augment a vehicle's rear styling and typically get more face time from onlookers than the front of a vehicle.

As the latest bulb technology, LEDs provide opportunity for all specialty lighting systems. They offer extended life and better vibration resistance, take up less space, use less energy and expel less heat than other bulb technologies. For taillights, they also appear at full intensity faster than incandescent bulbs. The downside is they are more expensive than other bulb technologies.

LEDs are widely available on original equipment taillights and center high-mount stop lamps on new vehicles, and on aftermarket taillight products. Only a handful of vehicles use LEDs on headlights, such as the 2008 Audi R8, 2008 Lexus LS 600h and upcoming 2009 Cadillac Escalade. Though more difficult to develop, LED headlights provide a great opportunity for the aftermarket to get ahead of this trend before they become widely available as original equipment on new vehicle headlights.

FEATURED products

1 Headlamps

Wagner says its new TruView headlamps provide a truer, whiter light that delivers exceptional forward visibility compared to 95 percent of the vehicles on the road. TruView headlamps feature a glass filtering technology called SpectraFilter™, which greatly reduces the yellow rays within the lamps' projected color spectrum. The result is a true, white light that offers high visibility in a full range of nighttime driving conditions.

2 Driving lamps

Hella, Inc. now offers the new 500FF driving lamp with the company's patented "free form" lighting technology. The 6.9-inch round lamp is designed to project more lighting output and deliver a more precise placement than conventional lamps, and features a clear glass lens and lightweight design. The lamp is made with a sturdy, shock-proof housing and a bonded water-resistant lens assembly that features an aluminum vapor-coated reflector for maximum durability.

Robert Cavin is a senior consultant with the Frost & Sullivan North American Automotive & Transportation Practice. He focuses on monitoring and analyzing emerging trends, technologies and market behavior in the original equipment and advanced technologies segments of the automotive market in North America.

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