Optimum visibility: bi-xenon headlights featured
as standard, Adaptive Headlights and variable
light distribution as an option.
Featured as standard on the new BMW 7 Series, bi-xenon dual
headlights ensure not only optimum illumination of the road in
the dark, but also, through their corona rings, offer an attractive
and highly effective daytime lights function making the car much
easier to recognise also from a distance.
The new BMW 7 Series comes as standard with a light sensor
automatically activating the low-beam headlights as a function of
ambient light. Yet another feature fi tted as standard is the rain
sensor registering the intensity of precipitation and automatically
adjusting the operation of the windscreen wipers.
The optional Headlight Assistant ensures additional comfort
when driving at night. Depending on the distance from
approaching vehicles and vehicles driving ahead of the car,
as well as ambient brightness, the Headlight Assistant
automatically switches the high-beam headlights on and off.
The Adaptive Headlights likewise available as an option ensure
appropriate illumination of the road ahead in bends and on
winding roads, the swivelling motion of the headlights following
the steering angle, the yaw rate, and the speed of the car.
The Bending Light function integrated in the headlights
switches on an additional light beam whenever the driver bends
into another road, illuminating the area ahead in the new
direction.
Adaptive Headlight Range Control featured for the
fi rst time in the new BMW 7 Series also takes the vertical
contours of the road into account, lowering and, respectively,
raising the light beam when driving over crests, through
tunnels or on steep ramps in order to illuminate the road ahead
with optimum intensity but without dazzling oncoming traffic.
Variable light distribution is a yet further function of the
Adaptive Headlights providing optimum illumination of the
road ahead also on a straight stretch. Geared to the speed
of the car, this innovative control system automatically increases
the area of visibility by enlarging the light beam, making it easier,
say, to recognise objects on the left-hand side of the road in
the City Light mode at speeds below 50 km/h by broadening the
distribution of light. In the Motorway Light mode, on the other
hand, the driver’s area of visibility is enlarged by increasing the
headlight range and intensifying the degree of illumination on the
left-hand side. Whenever the driver switches on the foglamps,
variable light distribution broadens the light footprint once again
and brightens up the nearby area in front of the car at speeds up
to 70 km/h. And at higher speeds this broader light pattern is
further enhanced by an increase in headlight range.
BMW got there first, but the MB system is more advanced.
