Japanese headlight giant Koito takes apart about 100 rival headlights a year

Koito Manufacturing, one of the world’s largest makers of original-equipment headlights, pulls apart about 100 rival headlights every year at its plant in Shizuoka, central Japan. Another facility holds more than 600 competitor units for analysis. The practice was reported by Nikkei Asia and relayed by Autoblog on Nov. 9.

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Koito’s aim is a 30 percent cut in production costs by fiscal 2030. The company has concluded that prices set by Chinese manufacturers are now the benchmark for the industry, and its engineers are working backward from finished lamps to find out how those prices are possible.

The Shizuoka teardown room

According to Autoblog’s summary of the Nikkei report, the teardowns at Shizuoka are used to study materials, internal structure and the number of individual lights inside each unit. BYD and Aito, a Huawei-backed brand, are among the rivals named. A Koito engineer, who is not identified in the coverage, said the company does not understand how Chinese headlights reach such low prices and that its chances in the price war were slipping as the industry shifted.

The comparison work matters because a headlight is a stack of choices that rarely show from outside: the plastics used for lens and housing, how many separate light sources sit behind the glass, and how many parts a design shares with its siblings. Taking a rival unit apart exposes all three at once, and a shop that keeps hundreds of them can see which choices Chinese suppliers repeat, which ones they dropped, and where their parts counts come in below Koito’s own.

That admission is unusual for a supplier whose customers include major Japanese automakers. It also explains the storage figure: keeping over 600 units lets engineers compare generations of a competitor’s design, not just a single snapshot.

A 30 percent cost target and the plan behind it

The plan Autoblog describes has several parts. Koito intends to streamline designs that used to vary by model, using shared internal components across lights with different exterior shapes. It also plans to buy lower-cost plastics and other items from China, after confirming quality and supply-chain reliability, a notable step for a company studying Chinese products as competitors.

Automation is the other half. The Shizuoka plant is to be modernized with AI-assisted systems, camera-equipped robots will move parts between facilities, and AI will help design components that meet regulations in different regions. Autoblog’s piece does not say how much of the 30 percent each measure is expected to deliver, and it gives no timetable for the plant upgrades beyond the fiscal 2030 target.

Koito’s shrinking China operations

The teardown program sits beside a retreat from some of Koito’s own Chinese factories. AutoTechInsight reported that Koito planned to dissolve Fuzhou Koito and shift lamp production to other operations, citing a company release issued on July 29, 2025. A July 30, 2025 MarkLines item described a review of the China production setup to improve utilization at the Guangzhou and Hubei plants, and a later item, dated Oct. 20, 2026, saying Koito plans to dissolve and liquidate Hubei Koito in China, attributed to weak sales at Japanese automakers.

The same MarkLines news page lists an October 2025 item reporting that operating profit fell by 27.5 billion yen and that the mid-term plan was revised downward. Only short summaries are visible without a subscription, so the reasons for each move cannot be checked beyond those short summaries. Koito’s corporate site describes a company that manufactures and sells automotive lighting devices, aircraft parts and electronic devices, and currently lists first-half fiscal 2026 earnings materials and share buybacks, with no mention of the teardown work.

Headlight regulation changing at the same time

Koito’s cost problem is arriving as American regulators reopen the rules for lamps. Autoblog reported on Oct. 8 that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had started a rulemaking process to modernize Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108, with public comments due Nov. 9 and up to 18 stakeholders to be appointed. Topics include headlight glare, automatic high beams, replaceable light sources and test procedures for plastic optics, according to that article on the glare push.

NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said current standards keep automakers from deploying the latest safety-improving lighting technologies. Lighting manufacturers are among the stakeholders the agency listed, so the same suppliers fighting a price war may also help write the next American lamp rules.

The open question is whether Koito’s savings ever reach buyers. One of the rivals Koito studies, BYD, is also the maker of the Yangwang U9 Xtreme hypercar, which Autoblog says reached 503.17 kilometers per hour in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 1, a sign of how far Chinese engineering has moved. No public figure ties the 30 percent target to replacement-part prices. Nikkei’s original text was not retrievable, so every Koito number here rests on Autoblog’s account.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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