These clever active beam headlights are finally coming to America

这些智能自适应远光灯终于要进入美国市场了

MUNICH—Headlight technology in the US 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 minimizing glare for both the driver and other road users.

慕尼黑消息——美国的车灯技术即将迎来智能化升级。当奥迪 Q9 SUV 今年晚些时候在美国上市时，它将搭载该品牌最新的自适应远光灯技术。这项技术非常巧妙，既能提供更好、更明亮的照明效果，又能最大限度地减少对驾驶员及其他道路使用者的眩光干扰。

Such technology is old hat to our European readers, but it’s finally debuting on our roads after years of lobbying and intensive, lengthy testing to satisfy the new federal regulations. And after trying out the headlights during a recent trip to Europe, I can say, “It’s about time.”

对于我们的欧洲读者来说，这项技术早已司空见惯，但在经历了多年的游说以及为满足美国联邦新规而进行的密集、漫长的测试后，它终于要在我们的道路上亮相了。在最近的一次欧洲之行中亲身体验过这些车灯后，我只想说：“是时候了。”

Despite America’s reputation as an innovation powerhouse, we have lagged behind Europe and Japan in automotive lighting technology for decades, thanks to 1960s-era 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 to no avail.

尽管美国以创新强国著称，但在汽车照明技术方面却落后于欧洲和日本数十年。这归咎于 20 世纪 60 年代的法规，当时仅允许使用近光灯和远光灯，别无他选。多年来，奥迪、宝马、梅赛德斯-奔驰、丰田和沃尔沃等原始设备制造商（OEM）一直游说美国国家公路交通安全管理局（NHTSA），希望将更现代的技术引入美国，但均未成功。

At first, it was laser high beams, which could project their beams much farther down the road than conventional halogen or xenon lights. Lasers are cool, but adaptive driving beam technology is even cooler. Each headlight is actually a multipixel LED, and by turning some of those pixels off, the headlight beam can be shaped to mask the light to selectively dim oncoming vehicles instead of switching to low beams.

起初是激光远光灯，其照射距离远超传统的卤素灯或氙气灯。激光灯固然很酷，但自适应远光灯技术更胜一筹。每个车灯实际上都是一个多像素 LED 阵列，通过关闭部分像素，车灯光束可以进行塑形，从而在不切换至近光灯的情况下，有选择地遮蔽光线，避免对迎面而来的车辆造成眩目。

Toyota was the first company to ask the government to let it import adaptive driving beam lights in 2013—the same year Audi introduced the technology in Europe in the A8—but it wasn’t until 2022 that NHTSA finally agreed that the tech had major safety benefits and should be allowed on US roads.

丰田是第一家在 2013 年请求政府允许进口自适应远光灯技术的公司（同年奥迪在欧洲的 A8 车型上引入了该技术），但直到 2022 年，NHTSA 才最终承认该技术具有重大的安全优势，并应被允许在美国道路上使用。

In Europe and Japan, where adaptive driving beam technology has been legal for many years, approval followed road tests by vehicle regulators and independent testing authorities. But NHTSA said that wasn’t stringent enough for the US, where automakers don’t get type approval for new products but instead certify themselves, then tell the government they comply with the safety rules. Instead, NHTSA set out a long list of tests that lights must pass to demonstrate that they don’t dazzle oncoming traffic. Completing that process took about a year, Audi told me, with months of test driving and lab tests to satisfy the relevant federal motor vehicle safety standard.

在自适应远光灯技术已合法化多年的欧洲和日本，审批流程是基于车辆监管机构和独立测试机构的路测结果。但 NHTSA 认为这对于美国来说不够严格，因为在美国，汽车制造商无需为新产品申请型式认证，而是进行自我认证，然后告知政府其符合安全法规。因此，NHTSA 列出了一长串测试清单，要求车灯必须通过这些测试，以证明它们不会对迎面而来的交通造成眩目。奥迪告诉我，完成这一过程大约花了一年时间，其中包括数月的试驾和实验室测试，以满足相关的联邦机动车安全标准。

There are 25,600 addressable elements in each headlight, enabling highly accurate beam gating. Audi didn’t have any full-size Q9s ready during our visit, but since the diminutive Q3 also offers the same digital matrix LED headlights in Germany, it sent us out after dark to get a flavor of what to expect when the tech finally lights up the tarmac over here.

每个车灯内有 25,600 个可寻址元件，实现了极其精确的光束控制。在我们访问期间，奥迪尚未准备好全尺寸的 Q9，但由于小巧的 Q3 在德国也配备了相同的数字矩阵 LED 大灯，他们安排我们在天黑后进行试驾，让我们提前感受这项技术在美国道路上点亮时的效果。

On our night drive, the headlights set to auto beams were extremely effective, illuminating much more of the view ahead than you’d get with normal low beams but clearly cutting off the sections of the beam that would otherwise light up other traffic. The lights also gated out road signs at a certain distance, again to reduce glare. And no, this did not prevent us from reading the signs.

在夜间驾驶中，设置为自动远光模式的车灯表现极其出色。与普通近光灯相比，它照亮了前方更多的视野，同时清晰地切断了原本会照射到其他车辆的光束区域。车灯还在一定距离处遮蔽了道路标志，以进一步减少眩光。当然，这并没有影响我们阅读标志。

The euro-spec adaptive beam digital matrix lights have a couple of other party tricks that do not make it to the US. NHTSA might have relented on active beam shaping, but it still has some way to go before it’s convinced that a car’s lights should be allowed to project onto the road surface while the car is in motion.

欧规版自适应数字矩阵大灯还有一些其他“绝活”，但并未引入美国。NHTSA 虽然在主动光束塑形方面做出了让步，但在允许车辆在行驶过程中将图像投射到路面上这一问题上，他们仍持谨慎态度。

You might wonder why anyone would want that, but imagine headlights that project a light carpet ahead of the car (once above a certain speed) to highlight a road lane as a visual lane departure warning. Or imagine signaling to overtake or change lanes and having the headlights illuminate the adjacent lane during the maneuver. The light carpet will also show you the distance to the car ahead, and the headlights can project an ice warning onto the road surface during low temperatures.

你可能会好奇这有什么用，但试想一下：当车速超过一定限度时，车灯在车前投射出一道“光毯”，作为视觉车道偏离预警来标示车道；或者在打转向灯准备超车或变道时，车灯自动照亮相邻车道。此外，光毯还能显示与前车的距离，在低温环境下，车灯甚至能在路面上投射出结冰预警。

The good news is that US-spec cars will have the necessary hardware to do all of those things, and should NHTSA relent, all it takes is a software update to enable them.