LED headlights give your electric car an extra six miles

January 24, 2011 | Iris Kuo

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).

[Image via Flickr/Dr. Keats]

Next Story: Light some CIGS: Intel leads $25M round for Sulfurcell's solar modules
Previous Story: RIM's BlackBerry Balance software to help users manage work and personal data

Twitter

Facebook

Google Buzz

Digg

StumbleUpon

Delicious

Google

More...

About the Author, Iris Kuo

Iris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you pronounce her last name).

http://www.sitereviewboard.com/ Elton Sites

Oh. This is a good thing to know. But better if I have one of those electric cars like Prius. LOL. But it is a great deal since you can go more miles with just sheer practicality.
http://twitter.com/dpeilow dpeilow

Umm, does Osram have an LED headlight to sell?Let's do the math:A typical Halogen headlight bulb is 55W. Autoblog Green said in their original story that the LED system is 28W. So LED will save 82W for the pair.An EV uses about 300Wh/mile in real world highway driving. Therefore, you'd have to be driving for 3.6 hours to save 1 mile's worth of energy with the LEDs over the halogens. Thus, to save 6 miles' worth of energy you'd have to drive for 22 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 42W for the pair between that and LED. So now you'd have to drive for over 7 hours to save 1 mile of energy or 43 hours for the claimed 6 miles' saving.I allow for a mile hit on range when driving the Tesla at night. That's being generous.