Are you one of the millions of people who has looked at your BMW M4 and said, "This is good, but it's just not TRON enough for me"? Then BMW has a luminous solution straight from their high-tech i8: laser headlights.
This is the BMW M4 Iconic Lights Concept, unveiled at CES in Las Vegas tonight. Despite the silly name — I don't really think the M4 or BMW laser lights have been around long enough to call them iconic — it delivers on what it promises: an M4 with laser beam headlights.
Here's how BMW explains their Laserlight technology:
Inside the laser headlights, the "coherent" monochromatic blue laser light is converted into harmless white light. A special optical system directs the rays from the high-performance diodes onto a phosphor plate inside the light, which converts the beam into a very bright white light that is similar to natural daylight and pleasant to the eye. Despite consuming 30 percent less energy, the parallel light beam is ten times more intense than that produced by halogen, xenon or LED light sources.
Coupled with BMW's night vision technology, Laserlight can provide early warning of people or animals at night from a distance of up to 100 meters, or about 330 feet. Amazing.
They're so bright you can't even turn them on during the day because the sun will say, "You tryin' to tell me how to do my job?" and then shut down in disgust, wiping out every living thing on the planet. And that's the asshat move to end all asshat moves. Literally.
The laser headlights go on an M4 finished in cool white metallic paint, which creates quite a striking image in the darkness. In the rear, the concept has Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) in the taillights, which produce light uniformly over their entire surface, use no rare metals and consume less energy than normal LEDs.
Sadly, don't expect to see cars with laser headlights on U.S. roads anytime soon, thanks to hilariously outdated safety regulations. You enjoy those lasers for us, Europeans.