A high-pressure gas discharge lamp (HID [high intensity discharge]) lamp) is described which is free from mercury and which is suitable in particular for use in automobile technology. The metal halides conventionally used as voltage gradient formers in mercury-free discharge lamps have various disadvantages as their proportional quantity in the gas filling increases, which disadvantages manifest themselves in particular in the form of an intensified arc constriction and arc curvature, and possibly also of a reduced diffuseness of the discharge arc. All these disadvantages are at least substantially avoided in that the use metal halides as voltage gradient formers is dispensed with, and that instead xenon is introduced into the gas filling at an increased pressure which excites an arc discharge.
