Mercedes-Maybach Unveils The Future Of Lighting: Geneva Motor Show 2018

Mercedes-Maybach has unveiled what it calls is the “future of car lighting” at the Geneva Motor Show 2018. The luxury carmaker calls this “revolutionary headlamp technology” Digital Light. Set to enter small series production in the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class the technology features a dazzle-free main beam with HD quality light projection and a resolution of over two million pixels. What’s Merc trying to sell? A car or a TV?

Like the Multibeam LED seen in other cars from Merc, the Digital Light, too, features pixel light technology. This technology makes for a more flexible and operationally efficient system for designers where each element can be controlled electronically. The first set of Mercedes-Maybach S-Class equipped with Digital Light is set to be delivered to fleet customers in the first half of the year. “With a resolution of over one million pixels per headlamp, Digital Light not only creates ideal light conditions for every driving situation, it also extends the visual support from our driving assistance systems,” says Ola Kallenius, member of the board of management at Daimler AG.

This tech-laden lighting system also houses a chip with over a million micro-reflectors along with cameras and sensors that can detect other road users, and evaluate the data from the navigation system using computers in milliseconds to provide “the best possible adaptation of the light distribution in all situation.” This system should definitely keep everyone happy and dazzle-free in a country like ours where morons who drive with their full beams switched on has become the norm.    

And that’s not all! The new lighting system can even project symbols onto the road in HD quality to give the driver information directly in his or her field of vision. The initial lot of Maybach S-Class’ will support symbols like low grip surface, construction site, rear-end collision warning, lane-keeping warning, blind-spot and speed warning.

So does Mercedes’ new lighting system make Audi’s Matrix LED lighting system look old-school? Let us know on our social media channels