BMW redefines the experience of driving at night

"Driving at night is significantly more taxing as well as more dangerous than driving during the day," said Mr. Abdul Rahman Hamada, Sales Manager for Alfardan Automobiles - the exclusive importers of BMW in Qatar, "so BMW has developed some fantastic innovations to aid the driver."

One of the shortcomings of traditional headlights is that they only light up the road straight ahead, resulting in significantly reduced visibility on curves. To address this problem, the experts at BMW have developed a technology they call Adaptive Headlights.

"Adaptive Headlights incorporate electromechanical motors to swivel the headlight units up to 15 degrees on either side as you turn your steering wheel," explained Mr. Hamada. "It can actually double the visibility on curves."

The system constantly calculates the radius of the curve by using sensors that monitor the angle of the steering wheel. As soon as the car begins turning, the Adaptive Headlights respond within one hundred-thousandth of a second to smoothly turn the beam and illuminate the road. Another benefit of Adaptive Headlights is that they synchronise the driver's gaze with the curve, since the human eye naturally tends to focus on the brightest spot in the field of vision.

While Adaptive Headlights alone would make driving after sunset safer, BMW has taken night-driving into the realms of sci-fi by incorporating the BMW Night Vision technology into automobiles.

An infrared camera mounted at the front of the car constantly monitors the road ahead with a variable range of up to 36 degrees and 300 metres. The driver sees it as a video image on the iDrive display, giving him an early warning of potential obstacles like pedestrians, cyclists and animals.

"Night Vision turns night into day," continued Mr. Hamada. "It's practically impossible to miss anything with Night Vision. It draws the driver's attention to objects that are nowhere even near headlight range yet."