Automotive OLEDs: introduction and industry news - Page 29

Audi demonstrated a new OLED based automobile taillight prototype. Those are flexible OLEDs that create an interesting 3D structure. The taillight was developed as part of the research project R2D2 (Roll To Device 2), funded by the German government. The luminaire was designed by Audi and built by Hella. The OLEDs are made by OSRAM.

Last month Audi unveiled their new luxury electric crossover concept car, the e-tron quattro - with OLEDs in all of its displays, its frontlights and its taillights. This is just a concept car, but Audi does aim to be the world's first company to introduce OLED lighting in the tail lights of production cars (even though BMW may have just beat them to it).

A few days ago we posted that BMW has announced now that they are starting to produce the M4 GTS at very limited quantities with deliveries are planned to begin in March 2016. The M4 GTS uses OLED taillights - and can be considered the world's first commercial car with OLED lighting (although at 700 units, it's debatable if this is a real commercial car launch).

In my post I said that I do not know the supplier of those OLED panels, and today OSRAM contacted me and said that these are OSRAM's panels. It turns out that OSRAM announced that they are the supplier of those panels (or the ones in the M4 GTS concept) back in February.

Update: it turns out that OSRAM is the supplier of those OLEDs

A few weeks ago, BMW unveiled their latest top-of-the-range racing-grade road car, the Concept M4 GTS, that has OLED taillights. BMW has announced now that they are starting to produce this car commercially - but at very limited quantities - in fact only 700 will be made, and deliveries are planned to begin in March 2016.

So this will be the first commercial car with OLED lighting - although this really very limited production so I'm not sure if it counts. A few days ago Audi announced their intentions to be the world's first automaker to launch a car with OLED taillights - but I think BMW will now claim that first. BMW actually always targeted 2017 for their first OLED car, so it's great to see them release this new technology ahead of schedule

Audi issued a press release today, towards the eleventh International Symposium on Automotive Lighting (ISAL 2015) which will take place next week, in which they say that OLED technology is the "next step in automotive lighting" - and Audi says that they want to be the first company to introduce OLED lighting in the tail lights of production cars.

Earlier this month Audi unveiled their new luxury electric crossover concept car, the e-tron quattro - with OLEDs in all of its displays, its frontlights and its taillights. This is just a concept car, but Audi will release an all-electric sport SUV in 2018, and hopefully they will adopt the OLEDs by then.

We just posted on Audi's latest concept electric crossover, the e-tron quattro, with its OLED displays (and lighting panels). This nice video from Slashgear shows the cars interior - with its many OLED displays (all displays in this new Audi are OLEDs).

Mark Lichte, Audi's chief of design gives a nice tour of the car - and it turns out that this concept has no mirrors - but instead it uses cameras and triangular-shaped OLEDs integrated into the side of the cars. A rather similar idea (a digital internal rear-view mirror) was adopted by Audi back in 2012 in the R18 race car, and was later demonstrated by Continental in July 2015.

As they promised last month, Audi unveiled their new luxury electric crossover concept car, the e-tron quattro. The car has three electric motors and can reach 310 miles between charges. And it uses OLEDs in all of its displays, its frontlights and its taillights. This is just a concept car, but Audi will release an all-electric sport SUV in 2018, and hopefully they will adopt the OLEDs by then.

So first of all, we have the taillights, which are using nine OLED lighting panels each. Interestingly, Audi also incorporated OLEDs in the front lights - which are based on LED lighting but in addition to the LEDs use five OLED panels as well.

Porsche unveiled a new concept car, the Mission E which is an electric car that sports a 800-volt drive, a fast-charging battery (80% capacity in 15 minutes) and a range of over 500 km.

The car's dashboard uses a large curved OLED display that adjusts to the driver's seat position, and it also includes an eye-tracking system. This is just a concept car at this stage, but Porsche expects it to enter production within five years.

Today we published new versions of all our market reports - that cover the transparent, automotive, microdisplay  and flexible OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to September 2015.

The Flexible OLED Market Report:

• Why flexible displays and lighting panels are so exciting
• What kind of flexible displays are currently on the market
• What the future holds for flexible OLEDs
• How to acquire flexible OLEDs for your products

The report package provides a good introduction to the flexible OLED market - present and future. It details both flexible displays and lighting technologies. Read more here!

Audi will unveil its new luxury electric crossover concept car next month - the e-tron quattro. The car has three electric motors and can reach 310 miles between charges. The inside of the car uses an all-OLED interface. This is just a concept car, but Audi will release an all-electric sport SUV in 2018. Hopefully it will retain the OLED displays.

From the image above, you can see that Audi will use at least 4 OLEDs. The center console OLED seems to be similar to the flexible OLED shown in the Audi Prologue concept. That display (produced by Samsung Display) was 8.9 x 5.6 inch in size and featured a resolution of 2560x1600 (287 PPI). The e-tron will also use another flexible OLED.

LG Display hosted a press conference in its Paju complex to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary. The company announced it will shift its investment focus to OLED displays - and will invest 10 trillion Won (about $8.5 billion) in the next three years to expand OLED production.

LG Display plans to develop OLED panels to be used in televisions, wearable devices, automobiles and foldable devices. LG Display cites DisplaySearch saying that the OLED market will grow to $28.3 billion by 2022.