A Hair's Width of Glass, Bent. Bury the Flat Taillight.
Audi bent an OLED taillight panel over a backing of glass about the width of a human hair, a world first on a production vehicle. That makes every flat taillight still in production a confession, and the trade has been confessing for a century.
Because a lamp should follow the body rather than interrupt it, Audi backed an OLED panel with glass 0.1 millimeters thick, roughly the width of a human hair, and bent it. The panel takes a three-dimensional shape and holds a radius of up to 200 millimeters. Audi says durability, contrast and near-perfect light homogeneity survive the curve. Glass that thin has no business bending. This one bends.
Since I mean to be unreasonable, I will be early. The flat taillight is finished, and not in the way a fashion finishes. A flat lamp is a panel hung where it was easiest to hang, a confession the trade has been making for a century without noticing. Take the flat lamp off the trade, on the strength of a hair's width of glass.
Because a coarse panel draws a coarse signature, six panels carry 512 individual segments between them. Audi lists what they say to the traffic behind: a proximity alert when a vehicle or pedestrian closes in, a warning triangle when the hazards are lit, a signal that the car is parking itself. Up to eight digital light signatures, selected through the MMI. A rear lamp with opinions.
My neighbor Doug owns a very dirty pickup and a happiness I cannot account for, and has never once looked at a taillight on purpose. He is the man in the lane behind, at the angle a flat panel cannot reach. This glass was bent to find him. Nobody has seen one lit. I ate lunch standing at the counter, thinking about it.
Because the trade renames every hard thing a styling feature, it will call this styling by Thursday. Were it styling, a pen could have done it. This took glass persuaded to bend. The lamps are available on the Q9 Prestige and the SQ9. They are not available on Q9 Premium and Premium Plus.