Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have had a reasonably successful history in penetrating the automotive lighting market over the past 20 years. While conventional LEDs have long been used for various indicator-lamp functions inside the car, it was the advent of high-brightness (HB) LED technology in the late 1980s and early 1990s that enabled the use of LEDs for exterior signaling functions. The first significant use of HB LEDs in an automotive signaling application was in the center high-mounted stop lamp on the 1988 Nissan 280Z. The LED-based stop lamp was manufactured by Stanley Electric (Tokyo, Japan), using an array of 72 aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) red LEDs.
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