Automotive Headlights

Automotive technology is constantly changing and adapting to improve safety on the road. It is difficult to keep up with the headlight  options available, especially if you are used to standard halogen lights.  Before buying a car or replacing your headlights, however, it pays to investigate the headlight options since good headlights can save your life or at least a little money.

Standard Halogen Headlights
  • Standard feature headlights.
  • Low cost.
  • Less focused beams than Xenon or LED and lower efficacy.
  • Usually 1,000 hours of light provided by a halogen lamp.
  • The basic lights that come on cars at no additional cost are the standard halogen lights. 
  • These lights, due to recent developments, are viewed as a thing of the past, as newer technologies phase these lamps out, an important thing to remember if you plan on keeping your car for more than a few years.

Xenon or High Intensity Discharge (HID) Lights
  • Better peripheral vision and maximum seeing distance.
  • Improved color for improved visibility when driving at night.
  • 70% more light output and 2,000 more hours of life than standard halogen headlights.
  • Uses 25% less power than halogen lamps.
  • Xenon lights  are the bluish tinted headlights you might have noticed on luxury cars like Acuras or BMWs.
  • These light are more expensive than the halogen lamps, but they are more efficient, and so your vehicle is more energy and fuel efficient, while having that nice expensive look of blue-tinted headlights.
  • Related buying guide: High Intensity Discharge (HID) Lights.

Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFS)
  • Optimal illumination in all conditions of road and weather.
  • Computer automatically modifies beam pattern in response to speed, road situations, and conditions.
  • The light intensity is regulated to minimize glare.
  • Adaptive front lighting systems  are hooked up to computers that gauge speed and steering angle to move the headlights to provide the best visibility possible.
  • AFS systems use halogen lights, but they provide a good challenge to the stationary Xenon system, which improves visibility, but does not predict where light is needed like AFS.

Light Emitting Diode (LED) System
  • Adaptive lighting technology that illuminates corners like AFS.
  • Light intensity varies quickly and easily to improve visibility and minimize glare.
  • Intensities change or pulse during stopping, by calculating breaking force and allowing lights to illuminate greater distances.
  • LED systems  are brand new systems that are predicted to one day replace the Xenon systems. In its embryonic stages, LED is expensive and not as efficient, but this technology is rapidly surpassing itself and one day it will surpass and replace Xenon, AFS, and halogen lamps.

Headlight technology is constantly changing, growing, and diversifying. There are cars with night vision technology to warn drivers of animals beyond the high beams -- just one example of what is to come as headlights incorporate computers and cutting edge technology.

To learn more about headlights and light you can check out these sources:

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