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LED Headlights Give Your Electric Car An Extra Six Miles

 
1,262 views Jan 25, 2011

2008 Cadillac Escalade Platinum LED Headlights

2008 Cadillac Escalade Platinum LED Headlights

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Your electric car can go six miles further on its battery if you use LED headlights.

That’s the conclusion drawn by an automotive engineer with Osram Sylvania, according to Autoblog Green. Electric and electric-hybrid car ranges are impacted by external factors like temperature, whether you’re running the air conditioning or heater and how often you brake.

Alleviating range concerns of electric car owners and prospective buyers is a big issue in spurring electric vehicle adoptions. Companies like Ecotality, NRG Energy and Coulomb are rolling out public and private electric car chargers across the nation. The partially-electric Chevrolet Volt comes with a digital meter on its console that turns green the “greener” you drive — that is, the less you brake or accelerate hard.

Because LEDs are more energy efficient, replacing traditional headlights with LEDS would go a long way for plug-in hybrids like the Toyota Plug-In Prius 2012, with just 13 miles of range, or the Chevrolet Volt, with 25 to 50 miles (both cars switch to hybrid or gas mode after exhausting the battery). The average all-electric car gets about 100 miles of range.

LEDs are already an option in some cars, like the Toyota Prius (a non-electric hybrid).

This story, written by Iris Kuo, was originally posted on VentureBeat's GreenBeat, an editorial partner of AllCarsElectric.





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Comments (8)

  1. By cdspeed Posted: 1/25/2011 6:49am PST

    I like EV tech articles like this, it basically shows yet another piece of the puzzle in building toward the future. I remember just a few years ago Audi premiered the LeMans Quattro concept with LED headlights. But they stated at the time that those headlights wouldn't make it to production because the technology wasn't good enough to make them practical, yet. And here we are just a few years later and the technology is on the road.
     
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  2. fb_100000458268753 avatar Neil Blanchard Posted: 1/25/2011 9:34am PST

    I think the Leaf has LED headlights?
    By the way, this sort of thing can also improve the FE on ICE powered cars. And, they could also use the alternator for "regenerative braking" by loading the alternator during deceleration.
    Sincerely, Neil
     
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  3. By cdspeed Posted: 1/25/2011 12:16pm PST

    @Neil, BMW is already putting regenerative braking on some of their ICE powered cars, my BMW has it. And from my own experience I can actually say that I can see a difference from my last car to my current one, it does help. And I know that Audi has optional LED headlights on their A8 full size luxury sedan. So they are actually putting these things into gas only cars right now. But it's no EV, I'm looking forward to zero consumption of gasoline in my next car, which may not be to long from now.
     
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  4. By paulrmc Posted: 1/25/2011 2:31pm PST

    "Toyota Prius (a non-electric hybrid)." Non-electric? What do you figure it's combining its ICE with? A steam turbine? ;-)
     
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  5. By  David Peilow Posted: 1/25/2011 10:42pm PST

    Umm, does Osram have an LED headlight to sell?
    Let's do the math:
    A typical Halogen headlight bulb is 55W. LED is about 1/10th so let's say 5W. So each will save 50W or 100W for the pair.
    An EV uses about 300Wh/mile in real world highway driving. Therefore, you'd have to be driving for 3 hours to save 1 mile's worth of energy. Thus, to save 6 mile's worth of energy you'd have to drive for 18 hours between charges. Not even a Tesla can do that.
    The case is even more extreme with Xenon HIDs. They are typically 35W per bulb or a saving of 60W for the pair between that and LED. So now you'd have to drive for 5 hours to save 1 mile of energy or 30 hours for the claimed 6 hours.
    I allow for a mile hit on range when driving the Tesla at night. That's being generous.
     
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  6. By David Peilow Posted: 1/25/2011 11:07pm PST

    *that should say "claimed 6 miles"
     
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  7. fb_100000458268753 avatar Neil Blanchard Posted: 1/26/2011 6:40pm PST

    The Leaf is capable of using under 200wH/mile, and other EV's will get closer to 100-125wH/mile. Aerodynamic drag is the largest improvement for any car, and EV's will benefit a lot with reductions in drag.
    Neil
     
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  8. fb_1286559153 avatar Sajjad Shahin Posted: 4/12/2011 8:54am PDT

    "HID headlights"
    I like EV tech articles like this, it basically shows yet another piece of the puzzle in building toward the future.The case is even more extreme with Xenon HIDs. They are typically 35W per bulb or a saving of 60W for the pair between that and LED."HID headlights"
     
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