[cycleworld.com] - Yamaha Working on Laser Lighting

[Ninjette Newsbot]

Laser headlights have been around in the automotive industry for a decade. Has Yamaha found a solution to bring the tech to two wheels?

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Are laser headlights like BMW has been using on the automotive side for a decade coming to motorcycling? (BMW/)Yamaha’s patent goes some way to addressing the problems with laser headlights. By mounting the laser itself in the center of the bike, it not only helps with the bike’s mass centralization but ensures that the expensive component is well protected from damage. With fiber optic cables routing the laser light to the front and rear of the bike, the lamps themselves would be relatively cheap, simple, and lightweight.


Honda has also been trying to find a solution to utilizing lasers for lighting, and filed patents for the tech back in 2018. However, Honda’s plans reveal a pair of lasers, one for the high beam and another for the low. (Honda/)Yamaha isn’t the only company thinking along these lines, and the firm’s patent application cites another patent application, from rival Honda, filed back in 2018 that showed a similar line of thinking. Like the Yamaha system, it used lasers mounted under the seat, routing the light via fiber optics to the front, but Honda’s idea was to use two lasers—one for high beam, the other for low beam—and only routing the light to the headlights. Yamaha’s version of the idea reduces the laser count to one, slashing the cost, size, and weight, and uses that single light source for all the lighting on the bike, front and rear. However, the Honda patent illustrates another advantage of fiber optics; it shows the high-beam laser lights routed to the mirrors of some bikes, an area that would be far too small for normal headlights to be mounted in.

So are laser lights heading for motorcycles? The Yamaha patent application certainly brings the prospect closer in a way that mitigates the cost of such systems, but with cheaper LED lights improving fast—they’re much better today than when BMW debuted laser headlights for cars a decade ago—it might be a technology that’s missed its chance at widespread success.