The little M3 badge is missing. Yea, you know – the one by the shifter. Seems BMW thought it wasn’t worth the extra pennies to leave it on, so all new G80 M3s get a blank space instead. That got me thinking – why did BMW kill laser headlights? Was it to save money?
Turns out, it was much more complicated.
US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard rule 108
Gross – feels like I’m taking you to the DMV, the most joyless place on earth. But really, we can blame the United States Government.
Believe it or not, the regulations for lighting on cars were written back in 1968, and they haven’t changed much since if you can imagine that. Compliance systems in the US state a maximum of 150,000 candela, whereas Europe allows up to 430,000. The US updated some regulations in 2022, but it turned out to be a big nothing burger. Modern cars are still limited.
Laser lighting’s power ended up being heavily diluted, with its range effectively cut from more than 600 meters everywhere else in the world to just 250 in the US. Since they can’t work any better than LED units, why bother?
There’s another feature the government doesn’t like either…
What is BMW’s Anti-dazzle?
If you take a look at the Monroney label for your BMW you’ll notice it might say “Anti-dazzle”, and every BMW with upgraded headlights gets it from the factory. They simply codes it out for the US market.
BMW Anti-Dazzle essentially leaves your brights on all the time. A camera on the car monitors what’s ahead, and will move the headlights around to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. Automatic high beams are an extension of this, but Anti-dazzle allows you to have brighter lights on all the time.
Traditional headlamps must have separate high- and low-beam control, hence why anti-dazzle isn’t allowed in the US market. You can code them back in, but you didn’t hear that from me. Having used them, I will tell you they work quite well – much better than that 20-year-old Sentra that just leaves their brights on all the time because they can’t see two feet in front of them and blind you anyway.
BMW Laser headlights are expensive
Another negative point is simply the cost to repair the headlights.
While shooting at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Performance Center, I noticed all the cars there had the standard LED lights as opposed to the upgraded laser units. This is noteworthy because the PDC always orders their cars fully loaded with every option, so you the consumer can try them out and spend more money.
I asked why, and they said that rubber chunks and pebbles kept hitting and cracking the headlights, and so BMW stopped ordering the cars with the laser units. Just how much is a new laser headlamp on a BMW M8? How about $7,000 dollars.
No wonder insurance is getting out of hand.
LED lights are getting better
Lasers are marketing-speak, similar to how we’ve become accustomed to the word “Turbo” as simply meaning better. Lasers might be better than LED-based headlights from ten years ago, but that isn’t the case any longer.
From personal experience, I can tell you the “triple-beam” LED headlights in a Lexus RC are better than any laser headlight I’ve used. But there’s science behind it too – BMW says that though Matrix LEDs and lasers worked together on older cars, LEDs are getting better in performance with distribution, and getting closer to the long-distance range of laser light.
And what about packaging? Laser housings could be physically smaller than LED units, aiding in the design of the car. Yet if you look at the new 7 Series (non-laser) and compare it to the X7 (laser), they both seem to be the same shape. Or look at the 4 Series unit – the standard LED option and the laser upgrade both use the same housing. Not really taking advantage of that packaging.
Pew-pew headlights can return if we update our antiquated regulations. But until then, looks like LEDs will work just fine.
Don’t think I’ll be making a headlight swap on my new car…
