Ford's New Fusion Ditches Interior Car LED Bulbs

At a event on "lightscaping" Ford Motor Comp. (F) discussed its transition to automotive LED lights and what is sees as the marriage of science and design when it comes to illuminating the interior of the automobile.
Cabin lighting is almost as old as the automobile itself; by the 1940s many cars were already sporting dome lights [source]. Gradually glovebox and instrument cluster lighting became ubiquitous as well, satisfying the basic needs of car goers. But even as other components involved, lighting stood static, driven by failure-prone incandescent bulbs.
But that's beginning to change. Automakers have begun to push light-emitting diodes (LEDs) both for exterior lights (LED headlamps, tail lights, brake lights, etc.) and for interior lighting. Ford has been among the companies pushing hardest.
Ford introduced LED lighting in the 2003 model year Lincoln Navigator, an entry-level luxury SUV. Since then it's been slowly trickling the technology down to its mass market vehicles, including sedans.
The culminations of what Ford calls 8 years of efforts is found in the 2013 Ford Fusion, which is Ford's first mass-market vehicle to use only car LED bulbs on its interior.
The upcoming 2013 Ford Fusion will exclusively use car LED bulbs for interior lighting, with the default color being "ice blue".
Already sitting pretty with hybrid-like mileage in its gas-only variant, the new Fusion will carry Ford's new default "Ice Blue" lighting color, which the company says first popped up in the 2011 Ford Explorer.
Ford technical leader for Design, Mahendra Dassanayake, states, "Automotive LED lights is evolving from basic needs to how to deliver enhanced experience, comfort, and convenience."
Traditionally, despite Ford's logo being a shade of blue, Ford's interiors were lit with red incandescent bulbs, which whose light was sent through filters to present a green appearance. According to Ford and its academic partners, green was a color that was traditionally associated with relaxation.
But the new shade "ice blue" should help improve both driver attentiveness is psychologically associated with luxury, according to Ford. Ford says that research has shown different colors of light activate different parts of the human brain. While such statements might seem a bit nebulous and biased, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York in 2008 published quantitative research that showed that shining a blue light on drowsy drivers helps keep them awake (and alive).
An infographic on emotions associated with certain colors from Ford. (If purple is magical, how come the iPad is black?)
An added perk of Ford's switch to LEDs is the addition of user specified tones. While "ice blue" may come standard, drivers can also select orange, red, green, purple, or blue tones. Ford accomplishes these different shades by packaging a red, a green, and blue LEDs into a unified package with waveguides. Thus producing a certain shade is as elementary as driving each diode at a particular milliamp current level, although in practice picking universally appreciated shades is a subject of considerable thought and consideration.
The previous Ford Fusion had this perk for accent lights, but the new Fusion extends variable lighting to the cabin in its entirety.
Automotive LED lights -- particularly bright ones -- remain expensive. But the switch ultimately nets Ford numerous savings in the long-run.
One saving comes from not having to replace interior bulbs. According to Ford engineers, an average incandescent lightbulb last "2, maybe 3 years" in an oft-used automobile. By contrast Ford's Interior Chief Designer Michael Arbaugh says that automotive LED lights' life is "more than the car."
The car LED bulbs in Ford's interiors will likely outlive the vehicle, say their designers. They are unlikely to ever need a replacement.
Aside from simple heat-stress failure, Ford says that the filaments in incandescent bulbs can fail due to vibrations, such as the loading of a truck. So borrowing Ford's assumption that the average vehicle sees around 10 years, and 150,000 miles of deployment, that's anywhere from 3 to 5 replacement bulbs, on average, per light source.
And Ford says that the LED package is a fourth the size is a fourth the size of a incandescent-bulb based package. This saves Ford time and money both on packaging the element and on the assembly line.
Overall the reliability and efficiency of the small components, coupled with the luxury justify the small expense, Ford feels. And unlike some competitors, Ford feels the time is now for LED in mass-market non-luxury vehicles.
Mr. Arbaugh pitches, "The outside is about love, the inside is about happiness."
Well, happiness and car LED bulbs, that is.