Curved digital OLED lets Audi turn rear lights into signalling displays, giving lighting a growing role in vehicle safety
Audi says its new Q9 is the first production vehicle with three-dimensionally curved digital organic light-emitting diode (OLED) rear-light panels. The curved digital OLED panels use carrier glass about as thick as a human hair, at 0.1mm, which lets them curve as tightly as a 200mm radius and follow the body’s contours.
Wrapping the lights around the corners makes them visible from wider angles to the side, which Audi links to road safety. The rear lights can also show warning symbols that alert other road users to accidents or breakdowns.
This third generation of Audi’s digital OLED technology spreads 512 segments across six panels, the largest of which has 99. Owners can choose from up to eight light signatures front and rear, now including semi-active versions with three-dimensional effects.
Up front, digital Matrix LED headlights use a micro-LED module about 13mm wide holding 25,600 micro-LEDs, each roughly 40 micrometres across. They project lane and orientation lighting onto the road, plus a turn signal that pedestrians and cyclists can see before the car changes direction.
Audi first fitted OLED rear lights to the TT RS in 2016, switched to digital, configurable segments on the Q5 in 2020 and increased segment numbers tenfold with the Q6 e-tron in 2024. Stefan Berlitz, Head of Lighting Development at Audi, said the goal is to make lighting a smarter, safer way for the car to communicate with its surroundings.
Source: Audi
