Are our LED bulbs Chinese? Our initial answer is Yes and No.
Yes, because they are manufactured in China, and No, because their two key components, the Automotive LED Chip and the Cooling Fan Motor, are not manufactured there at the required quality level for night-riding semi-trucks.
First, we have to say that very few LED bulbs you purchase in the US are not Chinese. And that is because the Chinese Province of Shenzhen has probably become the World’s most prominent electronic manufacturing cluster.
A region is considered a cluster when a massive amount of material and technological resources employed to manufacture a specific good converge in it. When such a situation occurs, competing, quality and price-wise, is challenging against a cluster manufacturer.
That is why the US is flooded with Chinese LED bulbs of many kinds. It is hard to compete with Shenzhen.
However, in any cluster, you have all quality levels, and in the particular case of Automotive LED Bulbs, you have to discriminate according to their final use.
A commercial truck rides ten times more than a commuting car in the same period, meaning that an LED bulb, built to last five years on a car, will last only six months on a commercial truck.
And now we come to the No part of our answer.
China manufactures reasonably-good-for-cars LED chips. When you come to semi-trucks, that’s a different story.
Only top-quality Automotive LED chips bear the long nights of a commercial truck in the US, and they are not Chinese but German, Korean, and Japanese.
The other critical component of an LED Bulb is the Cooling Fan Motor. These mini electrical motors have to be built to last under harsh atmospheric conditions and for long journeys. The Chinese have not mastered this technology yet. We stick with the Japanese for this particular item as well.
Many years ago, at FX-AA, we learned that if we wanted to please OTR truckers, we had to work only with the Chinese manufacturers that knew those facts.
Since then, we have required that our LED Bulbs carry German Automotive LED Chips and Japanese Cooling Fan Motors.
We do not accept other options.
Our LUCENT LED bulb (pictures below) is a perfect example. It is made in the same factory that supplies the famous German brand BOSCH with LED bulbs.
That being said, “Chinese Body with German Heart and Japanese Legs built for night-riding trucks” is our final answer.
