Today, up to hundreds of RGB and W-LEDs are positioned in a vehicle’s interior context and are able to be individually controlled in intensity, color and sequence. However, which kind of illumination distracts or supports car occupants and how to define such a modern illumination system is still under discussion and unknown. For that, first a definition for an in-vehicle lighting system is introduced. Second, a globally distributed study was performed based on a free-access online survey to investigate in-vehicle lighting for visual signaling within 10 colors, eight positions and six dynamic patterns. In total, 238 participants from China and Europe rated color preferences, color moods, light-position preferences, differences between manual and autonomous driving and also different meanings for dynamic lighting patterns. Out of these, three strong significant (p < 0.05) color preference groups were identified with a polarized, accepted or merged character. For the important driving-signaling mood attention, we found a significant hue dependency for Europeans which was missing within the Chinese participants. In addition, we identified that light positioned at the door and foot area was globally favored. Furthermore, we evaluated qualitative results: men are primarily focusing on fast-forward, whereas women paid more attention on practical light usage. These findings conclude the need for a higher lighting-car-occupant adaptation in the future grounded by deeper in-vehicle human factors research to achieve a higher satisfaction level. In interdisciplinary terms, our findings might also be helpful for interior building or general modern cockpit designs for trains or airplanes.

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