LEDs are increasingly used by automakers for car's lights

IN the lexicon of automakers’ design studios, two abbreviations — D.R.G., for down the road graphic, and D.L.O., for the daylight opening area of the windows — crop up frequently. Together, they refer to the characteristic form of a car that makes it instantly recognizable, the profile that quickly tells a viewer whether the vehicle is a Fusion or a Forester, an Eclipse or an Elantra.

But what happens to the graphic on the road when there is no daylight?

Designers can rely on lighting to help make sure their cars are easily identified in the dark. Besides illuminating the pavement ahead and signaling turns, lights — often referred to as jewelry by auto designers — are being used to express brand identity and model personality. The sapphire blue of high-intensity headlights or the ruby red of LED taillights are being deployed like a signature necklace or an ID bracelet.

The increasing use of light emitting diodes, or LEDs, in recent years signaled the beginning of a new focus on brand character. When Steve Mattin, a veteran Mercedes-Benz designer, took over as Volvo’s design chief, he promised to make the cars more identifiable at night through the use of LEDs. “I want the cars to be recognizable as Volvos from twice as far away,” Mr. Mattin, who left Volvo last spring, said at the unveiling of the XC60 crossover.

The XC60’s sinuously shaped taillight was recently included in a collection of notable designs of the last decade chosen by a respected designer, Konstantin Grcic, for an exhibition in London.Not all lighting signatures need be so complex. Lincoln has succeeded in creating night recognition by simply extending the taillight all the way across its MKX crossover in a bold horizontal band.

A similar shape brightens the MKZ sedan.Audi led the way in using LEDs as an element of its design signature. From the R8 sports car to the recently unveiled A8 sedan, Audi headlights are accented with strings of dotlike LEDs, faintly suggestive of holiday decorations.

Other forms of LEDs are used as taillights, resembling tubes or ribbons of light, on the A4 and A5.Stefan Sielaff, Audi’s head of design, said in an interview last year that LED lighting expressed precision and high tech, key elements of the Audi design language. “But each car needs a personality with lights,” he said. “I have an expert team doing nothing but light design.”

BMW designers aimed for consistency in the night view. For the 5 Series, they added a white brow of light above the headlights and taillights, and a fan-shaped array to its taillights, that give the car nighttime legibility.Infiniti’s taillights are recognizable at night by their circular constellations of red light, like Betsy Ross flags. Both the Nissan Maxima and Jaguar XF offer eye-catching zigzags of taillights.

The Honda Insight hybrid comes by its nighttime signature naturally: its high rear end and V-pattern rear lamps reflect the packaging of its batteries and power plant. On theCadillac CTS Sport Wagon, LEDs are deployed in upright strips that echo the traditional Cadillac tailfin.

Lighting suggests not just identity but the personality of a car, as in one option available for the new Chevrolet Camaro. A bright halo rings the headlights and the hood line overhangs the lamps, lending the muscle car’s face an aspect of concentration and intensity.To judge by recent concept cars, lighting will soon be even more closely tied to the character of each car. In the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics concept, a plug-in hybrid, the grille is equipped with slats that close and glow blue when the car is powered by electricity, but open and brighten when the car is running on diesel.

Some of the models to be introduced at the North American International Auto Show, which opens on Monday in Detroit for two days of press previews, suggest that such links will grow wider in use. As part of a design study intended to raise the status a subcompact model, Chevrolet’s designers supplied the Aveo RS show car with sophisticated-looking taillights.

Light’s expressive abilities may have been barely tapped. Several years ago, Laurens van den Acker, now vice president for corporate design at Renault, did a design study for Ford called the GloCar. Its surfaces were to be covered with smart LEDs signaling the driver’s mood, pulsing red when locked in a traffic jam. It was lighting that revealed not just identity, but sensibility.



Volvo XC60, top, and Chevrolet
Aveo RS taillights are designed
to stand out.

The BMW M5, top, and Jaguar XF
are quickly identified at night
by their lights.