When are you going fully electric?

[Sin_Chase]

In my view, LEDs are already brighter than they need to be because, in my experience, they give no meaningful level of improved visibility over halogens.

I'm not going to change your opinion on this, but I'm at a loss for words as to how you believe halogens are as effective as modern lighting solutions.

My matrix LED lights make night time driving like driving in the day. They segment where appropriate to give a better combination of flood, distance and/or corner lighting. They also detect oncoming traffic and dim accordingly.

 

[ICDP]

In my view, LEDs are already brighter than they need to be because, in my experience, they give no meaningful level of improved visibility over halogens. I'd be interested to see whether there's any research showing that brighter LED lights are actually of a safety benefit?

You’ve contradicted yourself. How can they be both brighter than they need to be, and give no improved visibility?

Or are you trying to argue that they go beyond what is required to see effectively at night? Seems like a weak argument because good visibility is vital. Halogen lights on an unlit rural road are barely adequate in my experience. Decent LEDs will light up to a much further distance allowing for much quicker reaction times.

Now if we want to argue cost, I agree. It should surely be possible to design a light cluster that has replaceable LED units.

My last two cars had matrix style lights (E-Tron and I-Pace). Now that’s an utterly pointless tech in my experience and offers nothing over standard LEDs.

 

[Mr Jack]

Or are you trying to argue that they go beyond what is required to see effectively at night? Seems like a weak argument because good visibility is vital. Halogen lights on an unlit rural road are barely adequate in my experience. Decent LEDs will light up to a much further distance allowing for much quicker reaction times.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. In my experience, Halogens provide more than enough light to react to anything ahead, they already light up my entire breaking distance, and usually as far as I can see on the roads I drive on. I don't even bother with full beams most of the time these days because dipped provide all the light I need. The LEDs on my old car were brighter, sure, but that didn't let me see anything I can't with the halogens on my current car.

Anyway, I think this is enough of a digression. I'll leave you all to disagree with me.

 

[jpaul]

[
thought it was xenon that was the sweet spot - why did they have to die ?
none of that useful matrix tech - but lot's of lumens & bulb replaceable; but I guess the system cost was never reduced to the level of the cheap/vanilla led units.
was the power consumption and implications for other alternator etc. too big. (At home metal halide bulbs 75W 6000lumens, puts the leds to shame in light quality/cri too)
]

 

[Greebo]

On the one hand I agree having £2k a pop lights on the front of any car is ridiculous. On the other hand in 24 years of driving I've never had to replace a headlight unit.

Up until last year i could claim never having to replace a headlight unit in 25 years. And then replaced both within 6 weeks. When they were LED ones at £2400 a pop.

Doesnt help they are plastic nowadays. The second one was destroyed by a pigeon i hit at around 70mph. Went straight through the plastic and trashed the LEDs. Was all just blood, feathers and bone.

If headlights were still glass, it might have survived.

 

[ICDP]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. In my experience, Halogens provide more than enough light to react to anything ahead, they already light up my entire breaking distance, and usually as far as I can see on the roads I drive on. I don't even bother with full beams most of the time these days because dipped provide all the light I need. The LEDs on my old car were brighter, sure, but that didn't let me see anything I can't with the halogens on my current car.

Anyway, I think this is enough of a digression. I'll leave you all to disagree with me.

Yes and I tend to agree but not everyone does. Night vision varies by individual and they swear an LED vastly improves things.

 

[cuke2u]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. In my experience, Halogens provide more than enough light to react to anything ahead, they already light up my entire breaking distance, and usually as far as I can see on the roads I drive on. I don't even bother with full beams most of the time these days because dipped provide all the light I need. The LEDs on my old car were brighter, sure, but that didn't let me see anything I can't with the halogens on my current car.

Anyway, I think this is enough of a digression. I'll leave you all to disagree with me.

There are good reasons why halogens are being replaced by led's, the first, and most important, is their power consumption. When manufacturers are chasing every power drain placed upon a power unit, be it electric or ice, it is very important to try and reduce as much as possible any electrical load by any component. This is particularly important for ev's

Halogens are inefficient as they can consume up to 80% more current than led's, and most of this usage is just dissipated as heat, not as light. Why on earth does anyone think otherwise when we are all replacing our household bulbs with led's to lower our electricity bills

Second reason is lumens and light distance. LED's produce higher lumens than halogens therefore the light from a led headlight will penetrate three times further than halogens can ever do.

Lastly cost, yes led headlamps are more expensive, but that is a cost to replace if they are damaged, how often does that happen? However led bulbs have a far longer lifespan than halogens thus running costs are much lower.

I drive two different cars, one a BMW with adaptive led's and two a fiesta with halogens and I would say that the fiesta is harder to drive at night on dark country A or B roads particularly when there are any vehicles coming towards you. The halogens lack of ability to penetrate enough to illuminate, even the kerb side, is challenging, particularly on our pothole ridden roads.

Sure if anyone drives on well lit motorways, dual carriages or A roads, then probably halogens, or the better xenon's, might be bright enough but once having driven a car with led's, particularly adaptive, then there is no going back.

 

[bigmike20vt]

[
thought it was xenon that was the sweet spot - why did they have to die ?
none of that useful matrix tech - but lot's of lumens & bulb replaceable; but I guess the system cost was never reduced to the level of the cheap/vanilla led units.
was the power consumption and implications for other alternator etc. too big. (At home metal halide bulbs 75W 6000lumens, puts the leds to shame in light quality/cri too)
]

i agree xenon were excellent and mentioned as much earlier in this thread.....
FWIW i agree standard lightbulbs are pretty poor with far better alternatives these days, but a quick google of under £50 a bulb for xenon seems a lot better than £2500 (albeit the latter is an entire cluster)

my fiat coupes had standard bulbs, and even after replacing them with the best ones i could, it was a bit crap at night on dark country roads tbh

my 350z had xenons........ nothing fancy but super bright.

my ipace have intelligent LED matrix. incredible light, intelligent control means i can run partial full beam even with traffic. Over all they are better than the lights on my 350z no doubt, but the difference isnt any where near as big as the jump from standard to HID on my 350z.

its just the cost to repair which has me worried. i guess its not a problem if you are on a lease or you get rid of your car once it gets on a bit in age.

but my plan is to run my ipace into the ground, keeping it at least for the next 10 years, and so with that in mind, potential light cluster failure is a concern.

I could be wrong however out of curiousity, how many here who are thinking that those worried about the cost of them are just being wind bags are the sort of people who wont experience the issue because the car will be long gone before the cost of them is a worry, vs how many here who ARE worried about them are more the long term owners.

because i think there is a big difference there TBH

1 thing i do hope..... My car has the extended JLR warranty and i do plan to keep it..... I hope they would not try to argue that light clusters are a user replaceable part and so not covered under warranty. i mean, this is the case for all other lights, but not the case for these!.

 

[Firestar_3x]

1 thing i do hope..... My car has the extended JLR warranty and i do plan to keep it..... I hope they would not try to argue that light clusters are a user replaceable part and so not covered under warranty. i mean, this is the case for all other lights, but not the case for these!.

Good luck with that, i'd get saving now if i was you

 

[Robbo]

Not sure if this has been posted, but it's another example of the media being completely wrong. This isn't even an EV.

Almost certainly driver error and he's blaming the car.

Hybrid Jaguar goes 'rogue' and reverses into a Porsche

Business owner Andrew Key was powerless to act as his £47,000 Jaguar E-Pace suddenly reversed at speed into a Porsche Boxster parked behind him.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[bigmike20vt]

Not sure if this has been posted, but it's another example of the media being completely wrong. This isn't even an EV.

Almost certainly driver error and he's blaming the car.

Hybrid Jaguar goes 'rogue' and reverses into a Porsche

Business owner Andrew Key was powerless to act as his £47,000 Jaguar E-Pace suddenly reversed at speed into a Porsche Boxster parked behind him.

www.dailymail.co.uk

i read that and thought it seemed a driver error. not only did the car wildly go wrong in 1 direction, it seemingly did a full on "Christine" and went proper rogue.

However.... as for not an EV, its a PHEV i think which still keeps it firmly in the sights of the EV hating oil funded right wing media sadly.

 

[Kenai]

However.... as for not an EV, its a PHEV i think which still keeps it firmly in the sights of the EV hating oil funded right wing media sadly.

I don't think it's even a plug-in, it's a 48V 'mild hybrid'

 

[bigmike20vt]

I don't think it's even a plug-in, it's a 48V 'mild hybrid'

oh i stand corrected then!......

 

[Robbo]

Yes, it's a MHEV as far as I know.

 

[bigmike20vt]

jesus why do i read the comments on the likes of the above sites?.

 

[[TW]Fox]

thought it was xenon that was the sweet spot - why did they have to die ?
none of that useful matrix tech

2013 onwards BMW 5 Series with Xenon headlights and automatic high beam had a similar system which provided largely the same result. The same system was also used when they moved to LED headlights. So you can still have a system that works in that way with Xenon headlights.

 

[bigmike20vt]

2013 onwards BMW 5 Series with Xenon headlights and automatic high beam had a similar system which provided largely the same result. The same system was also used when they moved to LED headlights. So you can still have a system that works in that way with Xenon headlights.

i guess what you lose is the ability to control different sections of the light so you can have high beam but draw a silhouette around cars you are following etc. Its a great system and works better than i could ever have imagined.
but whether its worth it is subjective i guess.

 

[Kenai]

i guess what you lose is the ability to control different sections of the light so you can have high beam but draw a silhouette around cars you are following etc.

That's how the Xenons behave.

Not the best quality video in the world but you can see the beam splitting etc. going on.

 

[bigmike20vt]

thats great... i didnt think you could do that with xenons. That makes them even better than i thought (and i was already a fan of them)

so what is their downside then? (energy use i guess?)

 

[ICDP]

There’s no technical reason the headlight cluster can’t have replaceable LEDs. It’s a cost saving measure.