An Opel Grandland research vehicle uses colour, displays and AI to explore how automated vehicles could communicate with pedestrians when eye contact disappears
Source date: 23 September 2025 Primary organisation: Opel / Stellantis / TU Darmstadt
Replacing the human signal
Driving contains a surprising amount of informal communication. A driver slows, makes eye contact, waves a pedestrian across or positions a vehicle in a way that communicates intent. As automated driving takes more responsibility, some of those cues disappear.
A colour vocabulary
Opel, Stellantis and TU Darmstadt built a Grandland demonstrator to investigate an alternative. In Level 3 operation the indicators can show cyan; when the system detects a potential pedestrian hazard, signature lighting changes to magenta and a display provides a warning. Once the vehicle has stopped safely, green lighting and a walking symbol communicate that state.
Why standardisation matters
The concept immediately raises a difficult issue: a lighting language only works if people understand it. Carmakers cannot independently invent dozens of colours and animations and expect pedestrians to decode them. Regulation, perception research and cross-industry standards may therefore become as important as the LEDs themselves.
Existing hardware, new function
One of the strongest aspects of the concept is that communication can be layered onto lighting elements already present for identity and signalling. That is the essence of software-defined hardware: the same physical surface performs more than one job.
The Lux View
As vehicles become more automated, exterior lighting may inherit part of the social role currently performed by the driver. The technology is comparatively straightforward; creating a universally understood visual grammar will be much harder.
Publishing information
Source and research links
Opel – AI-powered light communication
https://www.media.stellantis.com/em-en/opel/press/