NIO ET9 is officially released, and the application of Micro LED car lights is accelerated

On December 23, the domestic automobile brand Weilai officially released its latest model ET9. This model is positioned as an executive flagship model with a pre-sale price starting from 800,000 yuan. Pre-sales have already started and the product will be delivered in the first quarter of 2025. As NIO’s latest high-end model, ET9 adopts the most advanced technology in both on-board display and automotive lighting.

In the in-vehicle display section, NIO ET9 provides rear passengers with a 14.5-inch OLED high-definition display and an 8-inch rear multi-function control screen; a 15.6-inch AMOLED central control screen for front passengers and drivers, and a full-focus AR head-up display system that can achieve a 31-inch WHUD at a distance of 5 meters at the near focus plane and an equivalent 120-inch AR-HUD at a distance of 15 meters.

In the automotive lighting section, NIO ET9 is equipped with a new smart high-definition projection headlight. It uses Micro LED units and film and television industrial-grade high-precision imaging lenses, which can be integrated with NIO's Aquila 2.0 automotive sensing system to achieve enhanced near and high beam brightness, ultra-wide-angle coverage, large follow-up steering angles, and longer illumination distances, and can achieve pixel-level precise light control.

Equipped with Micro LED smart high-definition projection headlights, NIO ET9 has functions such as intelligent tracking light mats and blind spot reminders at intersections. It can also prevent drivers of oncoming cars from being disturbed by high beams, and has lane markings and other functions, which greatly improves night driving safety.

Micro LED car lights are gradually put on the car, and the LED industry chain is simultaneously laid out

The development trend of the new four modernizations in the automobile industry has given more value to car lighting. Car lights not only have the function of road lighting, but have also become an important part of road information interaction. Therefore, in order to achieve more information display functions, automotive lighting began to develop in the direction of pixel headlights.

Currently, the mainstream technology solution for pixel headlights is DLP (Digital Light Processing) technology, which is a projection car light technology based on the digital micromirror DMD components of Texas Instruments.

Micro LED, another key technology for pixel headlights, is currently not widely used in pixel headlight products because it is still in the early stages of development. However, compared with DLP technology, Micro LED has the characteristics of higher brightness, higher reliability, smaller size and lower weight, and has more low-cost potential in large-scale mass production. Therefore, the development of Micro LED pixel car light technology is worth looking forward to.

In fact, it can be observed from the dynamics of car companies and LED supply chains in 2023 that Micro LED pixels Car lighting technology has begun to enter the fast lane of development.

From the perspective of terminal car company applications, in addition to NIO ET9, Porsche has previously planned to apply Micro LED high-definition headlights to the 2023 Porsche Cayenne and as an optional configuration for the Porsche Cayenne Coupe model; Volkswagen's new SUV model Touareg top version will be equipped with h-Digi ® Micro LED lighting modules with 19,200 Micro LED pixels.

The upstream Tier 1 supply chain of car companies and LED packaging/module companies are actively launching Micro LED car lighting related products this year.

According to LEDinside's incomplete statistics, many companies have released the latest developments in Micro LED car lights this year, including Nationstar Optoelectronics, ams OSRAM, Jingneng Optoelectronics, Damao Verrico, Xingyu Co., Ltd., Anrui Optoelectronics, Magneti Marelli, Hyundai Mobis, etc.

It is believed that with the joint promotion of car companies, Tier1 manufacturers, and LED packaging/module and other automotive lighting supply chain companies, the development and application of Micro LED automotive lighting technology will continue to accelerate in the future.