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Similarly as in other branches of lighting, LEDs caused a revolution in the automotive lighting industry. LEDs have been established as a standard light source for exterior signal lighting in last the decade and the current development shows that a similar trend might continue for the main functions of head lamps. Roadmaps of all the LED producers show us more promising light output for a lower price every year. However, the LED price itself is just a part of the final price of the additional subassembly which provides proper conditions for the right functionality of the LED. Driving electronics (covering nominal state as well as a wide range of critical states), PCBs, connectors and wiring significantly bump up the price of the whole subassembly. What is more, as TIER2 suppliers are responsible for the LED subassembly, there is just a limited space for the TIER1 price impact and margins.

In the last two decades and especially in the last few years we could see an extreme increase of exterior signal lighting importance from the styling point of view and today it is one of the key factors of differentiation. In addition to that, styling requirements of world's regions are influenced reciprocally and needs diversity of developed and emerging markets is obvious. That opens new challenges for innovative optical systems development, when “innovative” does not necessarily mean “more expensive”. For covering global needs in automotive signal lighting it is essential to use the whole range of light sources (including bulbs) and combine different types of optical systems to get an interesting enough but affordable output. This paper aims to review innovative approaches considering different market needs to deliver reasonable solutions for automotive signal lighting of near future.